all outcast peoples struggle to be recognized as individuals. The damage of oppression is that it robs you of your individuality. You're just a faggot. Or whatever - fill in the blank. Everything you do is seen through the prism of your gayness or your womanness or your blackness by some people.

I think the reason I choose the comic approach so often is because it's harder, therefore affording me the opportunity to show off. Also, a comic vision is my natural world view, but I've grown up in spite of myself and I can pass the comic twist if it detracts from what the characters need. Yes, the life of a saint is hard.

Youth moves out, leaving no forwarding address. No matter how you try, you can't reach that person again or that place.

Knowing Latin and having two years of Attic Greek gave me the strong foundation upon which I've built a career. I think the classical training, more than anything, has provided me with longevity.

The process of writing, any form of creativity, is a power intensifying life.

Seriousness is the refuge of the shallow. There are events and personal experiences that call forth seriousness but they are fewer than most of us think.

In art as in politics we must deal with people as they are not as we wish them to be. Only by working with the real can you get closer to the ideal.