The Administration of the United States is such dread I almost feel paralyzed.

When you first start writing-and I think it's true for a lot of beginning writers-you're scared to death that if you don't get that sentence right that minute it's never going to show up again. And it isn't. But it doesn't matter-another one will, and it'll probably be better. And I don't mind writing badly for a couple of days because I know I can fix it-and fix it again and again and again, and it will be better.

There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.

Can't nothing heal without pain, you know.

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.

A lot of black people believe that Jews in this country have become white. They behave like white people rather than Jewish people.

Me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.