"I was walking downstairs carrying a drink in one hand and a book in the other. Don't try that after ninety."

"I'm celebrated for celebrating the uncelebrated."

"For the first book, I interviewed one mother of four little kids, skinny, pretty, bad teeth — meaning no dental care …"

"Something was still there, that something that distinguishes an artist from a performer: the revealing of self. Here …"

"Doris Lessing: We simply have no idea of Chicago … We never think of you as being on a lake, or of the city being bea…"

"Chicago is not the most corrupt American city, it's the most theatrically corrupt."

"I was born in the year the Titanic sank. The Titanic went down, and I came up. That tells you a little about the fair…"

"A man comes from New York. He says, "These petitions, your name is on all of them: anti-poll tax, anti-lynching, frie…"

"You know, "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely"? It's the same with powerlessness. Absolute powerl…"

"I like quoting Einstein. Know why? Because nobody dares contradict you."