Jesus is the masterpiece. The thieves are minor works. Why are they there? Not to frame the crucifixion, as some innocent souls believe, but to hide it.

Literature is a vast forest and the masterpieces are the lakes, the towering trees or strange trees, the lovely, eloquent flowers, the hidden caves, but a forest is also made up of ordinary trees, patches of grass, puddles, clinging vines, mushrooms, and little wildflowers.

we interpret life at moments of the deepest desperation.

If you're going to say what you want to say, you're going to hear what you don't want to hear.

Poetry and prison have always been neighbors.

The secret story is the one we'll never know, although we're living it from day to day, thinking we're alive, thinking we've got it all under control and the stuff we overlook doesn't matter.

They could read him, they could study him, they could pick him apart, but they couldn't laugh or be sad with him.