Everything I've ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it.

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

If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

Make up a story... For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don't tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief's wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear's caul.

There's a difference between writing for a living and writing for
life. If you write for a living, you make enormous compromises....
If you write for life, you'll work hard; you'll do what's honest,
not what pays

(Love) is easily the most empty cliché, the most useless word, and at the same time the most powerful human emotion—because hatred is involved in it, too.