"A writer’s life is a highly vulnerable, almost naked activity. We don’t have to weep about that. The writer makes his choice and is stuck with it."

"Nobody can take jokes. That’s why they’re jokes."

"A poet's work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it from going to sleep."

"The act of writing is an act of faith."

"Free speech is not something you can have 'too much of'."