The history of modern culture is a history of popular entertainments evolving into art.

One of my goals as a professor of English is to teach students to recognize and think critically about what makes something art.

It takes place, by and large, with the same sort of necessity as a tree brings forth fruit, and demands of the world no more than a soil on which the individual can flourish.

It's not surprising to me that books ended up playing a central role in my life, but it is somewhat mysterious that poetry did.

I seldom know what I'm going to write when I sit down. There isn't much agony and sweat of the human spirit involved in doing it. The writing's easy, it's the living that is sometimes difficult.

God never measures the mind... He always put His tape measure in the HEART

The great thing about fiction is that you can start off by telling the truth, then start making stuff up like crazy whenever you feel like it.

There's a common saying that everybody deep at heart loves their mother, except sometimes we decide our actual mothers don't measure up. And so we look for a replacement.

You can surmount the obstacles in your path if you are determined, courageous and hard-working. Never be faint-hearted. Be resolute, but never bitter.

Anything is easy to the man who sees.... The open eye of the open mind--that has more to do with real detective work than all the deduction and induction and analysis ever devised.

My business was great, and in such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.

A DJ can't just play one song. It's about playing a set, or how you connect songs in those two hours, and where you place them.