“Art is man's constant effort to create for himself a different order of reality from that which is given to him.”

“I tell my students, it's not difficult to identify with somebody like yourself, somebody next door who looks like you. What's more difficult is to identify with someone you don't see, who's very far away, who's a different color, who eats a different kind of food. When you begin to do that then literature is really performing its wonders.”

“A functioning, robust democracy requires a healthy educated, participatory followership, and an educated, morally grounded leadership.”