“I didn’t fall in love, I rose in it.”

Writing is really a way of thinking–not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet.

There is really nothing more to say-except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.

I get angry about things, then go on and work.

When there is pain, there are no words. All pain is the same.

As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think.

You need a whole community to raise a child. I have raised two children, alone.

You are your own stories.

I don’t think one parent can raise a child. I don’t think two parents can raise a child. You really need the whole village.

But to find out the truth about how dreams die, one should never take the word of the dreamer.

He wants to put his story next to hers.

There is no such thing as race. None. There is just a human race – scientifically, anthropologically. Racism is a construct, a social construct, it has a social function, racism.

Like any artist without an art form, she became dangerous.

Misery don’t call ahead. That’s why you have to stay awake – otherwise it just walks on in your door.

Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.

At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough.

Art invites us to know beauty and to solicit it, summon it, from even the most tragic of circumstances.

I like movies that make you semi fall in love with the villain so you have sympathy for him.

All of a sudden the progress will stop one day, and you will find yourself, as it were, stranded. Persevere. All progress proceeds by such rise and fall. —Vivekananda

When avarice takes the lead in a state, it is commonly the forerunner of its fall.

I fall in love every time. And I don’t really fall in love a lot, but when I do, I fall hard.

Those who stand for nothing fall for everything.

They turned the country up on its side, and everything loose fell into California.

I don’t jump to conclusions I gracefully fall to them.

Lack of culture means what it has always meant: ignoble civilization and therefore imminent downfall.