Chicago is not the most corrupt American city. It's the most theatrically corrupt.

Something was still there, that something that distinguishes an artist from a performer: the revealing of self. Here I be. Not forlong, but here I be. In sensing her mortality, we sensed our own.

Heroes are not giant statues framed against a red sky. They are people who say: This is my community, and it is my responsibility to make it better. Interweave all these communities and you really have an America that is back on its feet again. I really think we are gonna have to reassess what constitutes a 'hero'.

The issue is jobs. You can't get away from it: jobs. Having a buck or two in your pocket and feeling like somebody.

People are hungry for stories. It's part of our very being.

If there is knowledge, it lies in the fusion of the book and the street.

'Curiosity never killed this cat’ — that’s what I’d like as my epitaph.