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

You free. Nothing and nobody is obliged to save you but you.

We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.

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.

Evil is just sort of ultimately boring. The good thing is just complicated. It's more provocative to me and more stimulating to me.

Lonely, ain't it? Yes, but my lonely is mine. Now your lonely is somebody else's. Made by somebody else and handed to you. Ain't that something? A secondhand lonely.

Love is divine only and difficult always.