The poet Melvin B. Tolson once said "A civilization is judged only in its decline." That made sense to me. I would imagine the same is true for poets and tennis players.

I'm an old storyteller. I tell the story. It's about the story.

We are less lonely when we connect. Art is connection.

It's not a ladder we're climbing, it's literature we're producing. . . . We cannot possibly leave it to history as a discipline nor to sociology nor science nor economics to tell the story of our people.

Life is a marvelous, transitory adventure.

Floating to shore...riding a low moon...on a slow cloud.

We need to make sure our children travel to see things. Not necessarily long distances but at least out of the neighborhood. On a train. A boat. An airplane.