“What I think the political correctness debate is really about is the power to be able to define. The definers want the power to name. And the defined are now taking that power away from them.”

“Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.”

“Clever, but schoolteacher beat him anyway to show him that definitions belonged to the definers - not the defined.”

“All paradises, all utopias are defined by who is not there, by the people who are not allowed in.[Conversation with Elizabeth Farnsworth, PBS NewsHour, March 9, 1998]”

“As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think.”

“The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.”

“It hit her like a sledgehammer, and it was then that she knew what to feel. A liquid trail of hate flooded her chest.Knowing that she would hate him long and well filled her with pleasant anticipation, like when you know you are going to fall in love with someone and you wait for the happy signs. Hating BoyBoy, she could get on with it, and have the safety, the thrill, the consistency of that hatred as long as she wanted or needed it to define and strengthen her or protect her from routine vulnerabilities.”