American Quotes

Success produces success, just as money produces money.

It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between.

A poem records emotions and moods that lie beyond normal language, that can only be patched together and hinted at metaphorically.

Touch seems to be as essential as sunlight.

I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.

I don't want to be a passenger in my own life.

Everyone admits that love is wonderful and necessary, yet no one agrees on just what it is.

Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains.

That's what the right-wing is good at: figuring out the left wing.

Some of the stuff about Yogi energy is really fascinating.

One of the reasons I think the ultra right-wing has such power in this country is that no one talks out.

I'm very staid compared to my students, actually.

I'm really fascinated and you know I've been wondering about that usage of language, various breathing techniques and why in these practices language is being used in another way.

I write it to get it out of me. I don't write it to remember it.

I wasn't really into body piercings until I found that about half my female students had them.

I understand that when people read my books that there's something there - but I don't identify with it.

I understand that postmodern literature probably means people like DeLillo, The Fiction Collective, but I don't get it that those writers are really influenced by postmodern theorists.

I think the best thing in cases of censorship or things like this is to get as much media as possible.

I question: do we really understand the differences between modernist and postmodernist?

I mean, they censor your work when they're scared of it.

I mean, once work's out there it's meant to be used.

I found my voice was a reaction to all that voice stuff.

First of all, writing at best - certainly fiction writing - more and more I think is magic.

But I still don't have a clear idea of what my voice is.

And internalization is used in this country as a very effective political tool.

You can do whatever you want with my work.

Well, I think writing is basically about time and rhythm. Like with jazz. You have your basic melody and then you just riff off of it. And the riffs are about timing.

But guys such as Allen and William are more supportive than most men.

And I'm working at trying to find a kind of language where I won't be so easily modulated by expectation.

On the surface we all act like we all love each other and we're free and easy, and actually we're far more moralistic than any other society I've ever lived in.