If somebody's trying to shut you up, sing louder, and if possible, better.

That's the trouble with you sad-city types: a place has to be miserable and dull as ditchwater before you believe it's real.

I make no complaint. I am a writer. I do not accept my condition; I will strive to change it; but I inhabit it, I am trying to learn from it.

English, no longer an English language, now grows from many roots.

The liveliness of literature lies in its exceptionality, in being the individual, idiosyncratic vision of one human being, in which, to our delight and great surprise, we may find our own vision reflected.

I have no problem with people's religious beliefs. I just don't happen to have any.

Masks beneath masks until suddenly the bare bloodless skull.