The isolation, the separateness, is always a part of any utopia.

I'm not entangled in shaping my work according to other people's views of how I should have done it.

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

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.

The screams of a hurt woman were indistinguishable from everyday traffic.

When you gone to get married? You need to have some babies. It’ll settle you.' 'I don’t want to make somebody else. I want to make myself.

Who's Got Game? The Ant or the Grasshopper? The Lion or the Mouse? Poppy or the Snake?