That's how I do this life sometimes by making the ordinary just like magic and just like a card trick and just like a mirror and just like disappearing. Every Indian learns how to be a magician and learns how to misdirect attention and the dark hand is always quicker than the white eye and no matter how close you get to my heart you will never find out my secrets and I'll never tell you and I'll never show you the same trick twice. I'm traveling heavy with illusions.

If it's fiction, then it better be true.

There isn't a lot of poverty literature in the young-adult world. And I don't know why that is, but I think certainly I felt a gap.

If one reads enough books, one has a fighting chance.

And believe me, a good piece of chicken can make anybody believe in the existence of God.

I was studying the sky like I was an astronomer, except it was daytime and I didn't have a telescope, so I was just an idiot.

A really good stand-up comic is a poet; it's about the use of language. It can be really poetic. And I like politically conscious comedy.