In literature, you know only what you imagine

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.

Make every person feel special. Let them feel loved.

Cease striving. Then there will be transformation.

A habit is good if it helps you achieve your goal; it is bad if it hinders your achievement.

When the lights don't glow the same way that they used to and I finally get a moment to myself, I will realize you were everything I'm missing and you'll tell me you're in love with someone else.

A psychology degree doesn't get you very far.

I am a great believer in variations on the routine.

I don't have a sence of style in real life. I'm more like same-clothes-every-day guy. I don't wear jewelry, I don't wear any of this.

We need to recognize that part our political problem is that we do not participate effectively, that we suffer from a kind of mental slumber.

Why should I live my whole life where I don't want to be. [it's a good point - pretty hard to argue with that sort of logic really isn't it!

To know things as they are is better than to believe things as they seem.