So this is what insanity is. Not goofy behavior, but watching a sudden change in the world you used to know.

Gimme hate, Lord,” he whimpered. “I’ll take hate any day. But don’t give me love. I can’t take no more love, Lord. I can’t carry it...It’s too heavy. Jesus, you know, you know all about it. Ain’t it heavy? Jesus? Ain’t love heavy?

Long before I was a success, my parents made me feel like I could be one.

Can't nothing heal without pain, you know.

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

The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.

For a long time I was convinced that the conflict between Jewish people and black people in this country was a media event.