Show me a writer, any writer, who hasn't suffered and I'll show you someone who writes in pastels as opposed to primary colors.

I believe that we often disguise pain through ritual and it may be the only solace we have.

If you're afraid to die, you're afraid to live. You can't have one without the other.

Writers are the moral purifiers of the culture. We may not be pure ourselves but we must tell the truth, which is a purifying act.

Why can't peace be a single overriding common purpose: why do we wait for a crisis to pull us together? Let's pull together for peace.

I no longer idolize reason. I have come to accept that ninety percent of what we do is irrational and that we spend what little rational thought we have in justifying our irrationality.

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