I must write the book out in my head now, before I sit down.

Don't classify me, read me. I'm a writer, not a genre.

Recognize yourself in he and she who are not like you and me.

Writing is a struggle against silence.

The United States has written the white history of the United States. It now needs to write the black, Latino, Indian, Asian and Caribbean history of the United States.

Art gives life to what history killed. Art gives voice to what history denied, silenced, or persecuted. Art brings truth to the lies of history.

I need, therefore I imagine.

One wants to tell a story, like Scheherezade, in order not to die. It's one of the oldest urges in mankind. It's a way of stalling death.

What's happened at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq is one of the grossest violations of human rights under the Geneva Conventions that we have record of. It is simply monstrous.

Literature overtakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expands experience and opens new opportunities to readers.

You start by writing to live. You end by writing so as not to die.

What makes me feel rich is spending time with my children, knowing we are making beautiful memories together.

A mans life is interesting primarily when he has failed. I well know. For its a sign that he tried to surpass himself.

If put to the pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleve

There is no respect between the souls of two individuals if their minds can’t trust each other and there is no trust between them if their hearts can’t accept the truth of each other.

You are all great, and everything about your company is wonderful!

I think that for the coward every day carries a kind of death.

Disbelief in futurity loosens in a great measure the ties of morality, and may be for that reason pernicious to the peace of civil society.

I view my time in politics as a chapter, not my life.

The mother is the early care giver and primary source of identification for all children.... A daughter continues to identify with the mother

Brokenness is the STRIPPING OF SELF-RELIANCE AND INDEPENDENCE FROM GOD...but he is cast in total dependence upon the grace of God working in and through him.