That is how the world moves: Not like an arrow, but a boomerang.

That is how the world moves: Not like an arrow, but a boomerang.

Ralph Ellison

The thing to do is to exploit the meaning of the life you have.

The thing to do is to exploit the meaning of the life you have.

Perhaps to lose a sense of where you are implies the danger of losing a sense of who you are.

Perhaps to lose a sense of where you are implies the danger of losing a sense of who you are.

It is sometimes advantageous to be unseen, although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves.

It is sometimes advantageous to be unseen, although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves.

To hell with being ashamed of what you liked.

To hell with being ashamed of what you liked.

If the word has the potency to revive and make us free, it has also the power to bind, imprison and destroy.

If the word has the potency to revive and make us free, it has also the power to bind, imprison and destroy.

Meaning grows in the mind, but the shape and form of the act remains.

Meaning grows in the mind, but the shape and form of the act remains.

If social protest is antithetical to art, what then shall we make of Goya, Dickens, and Twain?

If social protest is antithetical to art, what then shall we make of Goya, Dickens, and Twain?

In order to travel far you have to be detached.

In order to travel far you have to be detached.

The act of writing requires a constant plunging back into the shadow of the past where time hovers ghostlike.

The act of writing requires a constant plunging back into the shadow of the past where time hovers ghostlike.

Had the price of looking been blindness, I would have looked.

Had the price of looking been blindness, I would have looked.

We look too much to museums. The sun coming up in the morning is enough.

We look too much to museums. The sun coming up in the morning is enough.

The truth is the light and the light is the truth.

The truth is the light and the light is the truth.

Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of the styles around him, I play by ear.

Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of the styles around him, I play by ear.

I do not know if all cops are poets, but I know that all cops carry guns with triggers.

I do not know if all cops are poets, but I know that all cops carry guns with triggers.

God is love, I said, but art's the possibility of forms, and shadows are the source of identity.

God is love, I said, but art's the possibility of forms, and shadows are the source of identity.

Good fiction is made of that which is real, and reality is difficult to come by.

Good fiction is made of that which is real, and reality is difficult to come by.

The end is in the beginning and lies far ahead.

The end is in the beginning and lies far ahead.

Power, for the writer lies in his ability to reveal if only a little bit more about the complexity of humanity.

Power, for the writer lies in his ability to reveal if only a little bit more about the complexity of humanity.