She [my mother] gave me permission to wonder, to dawdle, to daydream.

Words are to be taken seriously. I try to take seriously acts of language. Words set things in motion. I've seen them doing it. Words set up atmospheres, electrical fields, charges.

I've never been convinced that experience is linear, circular, or even random. It just is. I try to put it in some kind of order to extract meaning from it, to bring meaning to it.

Revolution begins with the self, in the self.... We'd better take the time to fashion revolutionary selves, revolutionary lives, revolutionary relationships. Mouth don't win the war.

We have not been scuffling in this waste - howling wilderness for the right to be stupid. All this waste.

Reappraise the past, re-evaluate where we've been, clarify where we are, and predict or anticipate where we are headed. . . .

My responsibility to myself, my neighbors, my family and the human family is to try to tell the truth.