I loved to read, but I always thought that the dream was too far away. The person who had written the book was a god, it wasn't a person.

I grew up in Ohio, where civil-rights accomplishments had already begun to accelerate before Martin Luther King appeared. In hindsight, we know that many people, black and white, were instrumental in changing the Jim Crow status quo on all levels.

Poetry of all the forms of literature I think is the most suited for the digital age and for the shorter attention spans and all of that. It Twitters very easily, some lyric poems and it's very easy to zip a poem to someone, so that's one of the things I think is wonderful about poetry in the digital age.

I believe people may have a predisposition for artistic creativity. It doesn't mean they're going to make it.

What's a word, a talisman, to hold against the world?

I always loved science. And in fact, I got a science award in high school. I mean, I loved science, but I think I loved literature more.

Equality and self-determination should never be divided in the name of religious or ideological fervor.