To get to a place where you could love anything you chose--not to need permission for desire--well now _that_ was freedom.

Clever, but schoolteacher beat him anyway to show him that definitions belonged to the definers - not the defined.

Jealousy we understood and thought natural... But envy was a strange, new feeling for us. And all the time we knew that Maureen Peal was not the Enemy and not worthy of such intense hatred. The Thing to fear was the Thing that made her beautiful, and not us.

I know there's some poetry that sort of sounds like daisies, but most of the good poetry is also [political], you can feel the heartbeat; it's about some situation that concerns human beings under duress. It's suggesting a solution, or just acknowledging that [the situation] exists. Art does that.

At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough.

Write about something you don't know. And don't be scared, ever.

Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.