I used to go up to her house. She lived upstate [in New York] and I lived in Manhattan; you're living in a lot of noise and my career was being built. For me to spend time with Nina [Simone] is to spend a lot of quiet time.

Nothing improves your writing, I think, as much as your keeping writing.

Rage is to writers what water is to fish.

There is no such thing as writer's block. There is only not enough information. If you can't write, learn something.

Writing is a conversation with reading; a dialogue with thinking. All conversations with older people contain repetition. Some of the ideas mean a lot to me, just interesting, so I both embrace and attack the ideas because I found them, well, delightful.

What's the difference between dragging a black man behind a truck in Jasper, Texas, and beating a white boy to death in Wyoming because he's gay?

We write because we believe the human spirit cannot be tamed and should not be trained.