A lot of politics plays at the level of myth, and if you understand that, then you feel like you have access to the secret language of politics.

Public education is so important - resisting privatization and charterization, high-stakes testing, and defunding. It's important for New York, but it's also important for the country.

I don't have any particular plans in mind. What I see is that you can become so focused on the idea of running that winning becomes your motivation, as opposed to what you stand for being your motivation.

Having more candidates come with a creative and artistic sensibility would actually bring more people out to vote.

If you think art is a competitive forum, then you're going to stop doing it if you're not good. But if it's not competitive, it's something that you'll keep doing.

Oftentimes people get it wrong when they say we need to educate voters first and then give them power. I tend to favor giving them power first.

I feel much more comfortable in politics than I did in book writing. Book writing is so hard. Politics felt easy compared to that.