I think one of the reasons I'm so thrilled with writing is because it is an act of reading for me at the same time, which is why my revisions are so sustained.

Beauty was not simply something to behold; it was something one could do.

I am in the position of judging people by the best they've ever done rather than the worst.

I tell my students, 'When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. This is not just a grab-bag candy game.

They encouraged you to put some of your weight in their hands and soon as you felt how light and lovely it was, they studied your scars and tribulations.

When a man angers you, he conquers you.

There in the center of that silence was not eternity but the death of time and a loneliness so profound the word itself had no meaning.