Time, which is your enemy in almost everything in this life, is your friend in writing.

We are made to persist. that's how we find out who we are.

Fearlessness in those without power is maddening to those who have it.

One of the things that draws writers to writing is that they can get things right that they got wrong in real life by writing about them.

The beauty of a fragment is that it still supports the hope of brilliant completeness.

A piece of writing is a dangerous thing," he said. "It can change your life.

Real maturity is the ability to imagine the humanity of every person as fully as you believe in your own humanity.

Memory is funny. Once you hit a vein the problem is not how to remember but how to control the flow.

Everything has to be pulling weight in a short story for it to be really of the first order.

Most of us dont live lives that lend themselves to novelistic expression, because our lives are so fragmented.

Because I don't have to be careful of people's feelings when I teach literature, and I do when I'm teaching writing.

Story is the mother of us all, for we become who we say we are.

When you're a little kid, you don't see color, and the fact that my friends were black never crossed my mind. It never became an issue until I was a teenager and started trying to rap.

She was owner and captive, both, of a bitterly divided heart.

Love plans for tomorrow and loneliness thinks of yesterday.

Actors are merely the medium through which a story happens.

One never really knows who one's enemy is.

In the old days, we painstakingly copied our emails onto paper, put a stamp on them and mailed them to arrive 4 to 5 days later. We also churned our own butter and used our phones for talking.

The more bosom a woman displayed, the less she wanted you to look. Openly, at least.

The action heroes were very cool as a kid. You would compare yourself with them - Jean-Claude Van Damme and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

You know what they say: 'Why sit at a table that doesn't have key lime pie on it if you don't have to?'