“I put my hand on the altar rail. 'What if ... what if Heaven is real, but only in moments? Like a glass of water on a hot day when you're dying of thirst, or when someone's nice to you for no reaso...”

“We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love.”

“The last of the cherry blossom. On the tree, itturns ever more perfect. And when its perfect, it falls. And then of course once it hits theground it gets all mushed up. So its only absolutely perfe...”

“Disco's are tricky. You look a total wally if you dance too early but after one crucial song tips the disco over, you look a sad saddo if you don't.”

“I've never listened to music lying down. Listening's reading if you close your eyes.Music's a wood you walk through.”

“Strip back the beliefs pasted on by governesses, schools, and states, you find indelible truths at one's core.”

“...the values ascribed to the Indian will depend on what the white writer feels about Nature, and America has always had mixed feelings about that. At one end of the spectrum is Thoreau, wishing to...”

“Literature is news which stays news.”

“I have tried to write about politics in an allusive manner that draws upon other interests and to approach literature and criticism without ignoring the political dimension. Even if I have failed i...”

“And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

“You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”