“The fear of not living is a deep, abiding dread of watching your own potential decompose into irredeemable disappointment when 'should be' gets crushed by what is.”

“How easy is murder when one calls it by a different name? How much easier is it for the conscience to condone reaping than killingand when one knows that death isnt the end, does it stop the killin...”

“...the Statue of Liberty's got this invitation: 'Give me your tired, your poor, your reeking homeless--''Huddled masses,' said Ira. 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to b...”

“I always hear people talk about 'dysfunctional families.' It annoys me, because it makes you think that somewhere there's this magical family where everyone gets along, and no one ever screams thin...”

“...Our conversation with the supermarket manager had been about as helpful as a New Jersey road sign, and if you've ever been there, you know the signs don't tell you the exit you're coming up to, ...”

“There is nothing to fear but fear itself," the captain announces from the helm, "and the occasional man-eating monster.”

“But Alonso kept smiling that smile and nothing made any sense with that smile looking you in the face. 'Jim, don't tell me that, you know, brother-shit. I have been through it all. Take, you know, ...”

“The first gang members who joined the military were known as the Hounds, a group of former New York gang members.”

“I look at my students and have no trouble picturing just how successful they should be, if only we could remove them from the impetuses that brought them to the facility. If we could move them away...”

“Some negroes lie, some are immoral, some negro men are not be trusted around women - black and white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men.”

“The only honest way to approach the question of whiteness and blackness is to start by accepting that these are arbitrary categories that were invented in the 17th and 18th century in order to just...”

“I never asked Tolstoy to write for me, a little colored girl in Lorain, Ohio. I never asked [James] Joyce not to mention Catholicism or the world of Dublin. Never. And I don't know why I should be ...”