Writing can be a lifeline, especially when your existence has been denied, especially when you have been left on the margins, especially when your life and process of growth have been subjected to attempts at strangulation.

You must aim high, not in what you are going to do at some future date, but in what you are going to make yourself do to-day. Otherwise, working is just a waste of time.

Inspiration cannot be willed, though it can be wooed.

Every great architect is — necessarily — a great poet. He must be a great original interpreter of his time, his day, his age.

Shakespeare wrote about love. I write about love. Shakespeare wrote about gang warfare, family feuds and revenge. I write about all the same things.

Observe the light and consider its beauty. Blink your eye and look at it. That which you see was not there at first, and that which was there is there no more.