I don't think about commercial concerns when I first come up with something. When I sit down at the piano, I try to come up with something that moves me.

Young writers should definitely research the current sounds and styles.

We had to forgive to survive the labyrinth

I write poetry in order to live more fully.

Travel is lethal to prejudice.

To avoid doing anything, wait for the right circumstances.

Somehow the idea of Montgomery as a fairy doesn't have the same effect on me as it appears to have on you. -Raphael

My mirror probes down to the heart. I write words on the forehead and around the corners of the mouth. My human faces are truer than the real ones.

It is a remarkable coincidence that almost everyone has the same religion as their parents and it always just so happens they're the right religion.

Judaism for me is a sensibility of collective self-questioning and uncomfortable truth-telling. I feel a debt of responsibility to this past. It is why I am Jewish.

Come, for my part I will have only those glorious, manly pleasures of being very drunk, and very slovenly.

Too many words are lit for a beast of burden.