I don't want you to write about what you know, because you don't know anything. I don't want to hear about your boyfriend or your grandma... I'm getting a little tired of 'my life story as fiction'. Please don't tell me about your little life - is there nothing larger? More important?

The presence of evil was something to be first recognized, then dealt with, survived, outwitted, triumphed over.

What's the world for you if you can't make it up the way you want it?

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

Please don't settle for happiness. It's not good enough. Of course you deserve it, but if that's all you have in mind - happiness - I want to suggest to you that personal success devoid of meaningfulness, free of a steady commitment to social justice - that's more than a barren life. It's a trivial one.

Political doesn't necessarily mean you have an agenda.

The vitality of language lies in its ability to limn the actual, imagined and possible lives of its speakers, readers, writers.