I tell my students one of the most important things they need to know is when they are at their best, creatively. They need to ask themselves, What does the ideal room look like? Is there music? Is there silence? Is there chaos outside or is there serenity outside? What do I need in order to release my imagination?

Let your face speak what's in your heart.

I don't believe any real artists have ever been non-political. They may have been insensitive to this particular plight or insensitive to that, but they were political, because that's what an artist is-a politician.

And wouldn't you know he'd be a singing man.

I want to feel what I feel. What's mine. Even if it's not happiness, whatever that means. Because you're all you've got.

Everything I've ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it.

The past is interesting to me because it's been dumbed down or flattened out, or academically nitpicked so you can't get any life out of it, you just get data.