We need to make sure that the powers that be know that arts education is as vital and as important as geography and arithmetic. You know, it is a part of the spiritual and the soulful experience and expression of being human and it is a necessity, as necessary as water, as breathing air.

I don't think you choose whether or not you're gay.

I think Oprah who is the height of aspiration and inspiration recognizes something in me that is germane.

I want the same standard applied to homosexuals as is applied to heterosexuals.

Well, you know, they use those words so that they can scare people "terror" and "cell."

I'd always admired writers. I'd always loved words on a page. Somehow, words seemed to bypass image and get straight to the heart of things. Somehow, words seemed big enough to contain pain, and sentences could pull broken bits together.

To give them what I never had heals me. Some days I look at them and almost start to cry. I think, How can I love them more than I did the day before? But it keeps growing.