Black people have always been used as a buffer in this country between powers to prevent class war.

Most of the really good literature I've read in my life was political, meaning it was important - about something going on in the history of the world - or contemporary.

My theory is that the world is a difficult place to live in and distraction is the name of the game.

How soon country people forget. When they fall in love with a city it is forever, and it is like forever. As though there never was a time when they didn't love it. The minute they arrive at the train station or get off the ferry and glimpse the wide streets and the wasteful lamps lighting them, they know they are born for it. There, in a city, they are not so much new as themselves: their stronger, riskier selves.

From my point of view, which is that of a storyteller, I see your life as something artful, waiting, just waiting and ready for you to make it art.

Maybe [I care about language] because I'm an editor, maybe because I'm picky, but it's all we got, don't shrink it. Don't dumb it out, make it little.

We're all surrounded by what I call faux language, fake language of commerce, of news media.