“Does a man become a revolutionary out of the belief he's entitled to joy rather than submission?”

“You learn to read so you can identify the reality in which you live, so that you can become a protagonist history rather than a spectator" Father Fernando Cardenal”

“A novel! Why do you say this won't liberate anyone? Where does any man go to be free, whether he is poor or rich or even in prison? To Dostoyevsky! To Gogol!”

“Be still, and the world is bound to turn herself inside out to entertain you. Everywhere you look, joyful noise is clanging to drown out quiet desperation.”

“God, why does a mortal man have children? It is senseless to love anything this much.”

“April is the cruelest month, T.S. Eliot wrote, by which I think he meant (among other things) that springtime makes people crazy. We expect too much, the world burgeons with promises it can't keep, all passion is really a setup, and we're doomed to get our hearts broken yet again. I agree, and would further add: Who cares? Every spring I go out there anyway, around the bend, unconditionally. ... Come the end of the dark days, I am more than joyful. I'm nuts. ”

“Heroes may be less than heroic, while the common man saves the day.”