Novelists have to love humanity to write anything worthwhile. Poets have to love themselves.

Surviving and believing in tomorrow is just a habit I can't break.

Racism is a virus. And since nobody's really looking too hard for a cure it reproduces itself over and over again.

To my father, who told me the stories that matter. To my mother, who taught me to remember them.

I quickly learned that motherhood was a high wire act sometimes performed without a net.

I am a stranger to half measures.

It was important, I know, for my father as a product of his times not to be vulnerable, so he chose, and I can't say that I blame him, to live his life rather than create it.

Love is going to replace life and from then on it's all smooth sailing. Love will replace life.

Skeptics always want miracles such as stepping down from the Cross, but never the greater miracle of forgiveness.

Confidence is this: Wearing your triumphs with humility, and wearing your scars with pride. Many of us do precisely the opposite.

You were meant for me, Poppy. I can feel it in my fingertips when I touch you.

Man will become better when you show him what he is like.

Rock n' roll can get quite overwhelming. You can get caught up in the cycle.

I'm not interested in entertainment.

Mathematics is the language in which the gods talk to people.

The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.

Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to 'jump at the sun.' We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.