People say to write about what you know. I'm here to tell you, no one wants to read that, cos you don't know anything. So write about something you don't know. And don't be scared, ever.

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

Race is the least reliable information you can have about someone. It's real information, but it tells you next to nothing.

I don't wait to be struck by lightning and I don't need certain slants of light in order to be able to write.

Hospitality is gold in this City; you have to be clever to figure out how to be welcoming and defensive at the same time. When to love something and when to quit. If you don't know how, you can end up out of control or controlled by some outside thing like that hard case last winter.

Everything depends on knowing how much,” she said, and “Good is knowing when to stop.

The peace I am thinking of is the dance of an open mind when it engages another equally open one.