When am I happy and when am I sad and what is the difference? What do I need to know to stay alive? What is true in the world?

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

Let your face speak what's in your heart. When my kids walk in the room my face says I'm glad to see them.

There is a loneliness that can be rocked. Arms crossed, knees drawn up, holding, holding on, this motion, unlike a ship's, smooths and contains the rocker. It's an inside kind--wrapped tight like skin. Then there is the loneliness that roams. No rocking can hold it down. It is alive. On its own. A dry and spreading thing that makes the sound of one's own feet going seem to come from a far-off place.

Deep, deep trouble. Can't rival the dead for love. Lose every time.

Your life is already artful-waiting, just waiting, for you to make it art.

I lived in a little working-class town that had no black neighborhoods at all - one high school. We all played together. Everybody was either somebody from the South or an immigrant from East Europe or from Mexico. And there was one church, and there were four elementary schools. And we were all, pretty much until the end of the war, very, very poor.