"Me personally and professionally, I haven't been that outspoken about race and class, partly because it's in my work,…"

"Writing is the act of failing at something all the time. Do it with a sense of humor, and it ain’t no big deal. Life …"

"You can’t become a good writer unless you have the ability to see that everybody is seeking to ease his or her pain, …"

"Most of my characters: they don't yell, they don't scream. They don't curse, by and large. They're good people. And y…"

"When I was a kid, my mother told me about the time my sister got lost at the circus in New York in Madison Square Gar…"

"She smiled a little bit. “Most of us has a desire to mind other folks’ business,” she said. “That’s the child in you,…"

"You ugly enough to keep ants out of a picnic, mister."

"I’m in the last October of life looking for a few more Aprils. I don’t want to remember no more."

"Sitting around bullshitting ain’t no problem for Man, who can ignore his own heart and treat his own with all kinds o…"

"Now he wanted more. That’s the problem with Smelly Ones. They got one thing Animals don’t got. They got ambition."