The Republicans were not always insane. They might've had politics I didn't agree with, but they weren't always actually certifiable.

Our lives, our stories, flowed into one another's, were no longer our own, individual, discrete.

There is a widespread difficulty in the Muslim world, which has to do with how the people are taught about examining their own history. A whole range of stuff has been placed off limits.

One of the characteristics of mudslinging is that mud sticks if it's thrown with enough force for long enough.

A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.

I don't like books that play to the gallery, but I've become more concerned with telling a story as clearly and engagingly as I can.

Certainly, poverty and economic decline have a lot to do with the so-called rage of Islam. You've got all these young men in countries which are economically in bad shape. The idea that they might be able to make a good living and get married and have a family, a decent life, seems very remote to a lot of people in a lot of the world.