"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…"

"At a time when pimpery, lick-spittlery, and picking the public's pocket are the order of the day — indeed, officially…"

"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…"