I would solve a lot of literary problems just thinking about a character in the subway, where you can't do anything anyway.

In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent.

Love just seems to make life not just livable, but a gallant, gallant event.

Love is never any better than the lover. Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly, but the love a free man is never safe. There is no gift for the beloved. the lover alone possesses his gift of love. The loved one is shorn, neutralized, frozen in the glance of the lover’s inward eyes.

It would be ten years before they saw each other again, and their meeting would be thick with birds.

Intimacy is extremely important to me and I want it to be extremely important to the readers.

No one ever talks about the moment you found that you were white. Or the moment you found out you were black. That's a profound revelation. The minute you find that out, something happens. You have to renegotiate everything.