Going to the library was the one place we got to go without asking for permission. And they let us choose what we wanted to read. It was a feeling of having a book be mine entirely.

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 think reading Shakespeare's plays when I was young was extremely important. He had the ability to make utter strangers come alive.

What is ironic is that Allen Ginsberg's importance was in its twilight for so many years that it took his death to bring it to the front page. He electrified an entire world!

The sound of the mandolin is a very curious sound because it's cheerful and melancholy at the same time, and I think it comes from that shadow string, the double strings.

I prefer to explore the most intimate moments, the smaller, crystallized details we all hinge our lives on.

My childhood library was small enough not to be intimidating. And yet I felt the whole world was contained in those two rooms. I could walk any aisle and smell wisdom.