There are things I don't like, like sitting at the head of the class. It makes me uncomfortable. I'll do it in a seminar if I have to, but with a wor….

Well, it's not all the same, but there are a lot of parallels. I'm not sure how to answer [on psychology background], but I think when I was studying….

I try to be accommodating, but I'm pretty much a loner..

It's weird because there is progress somehow. But there's so much that just feels the same. How important is that rank? How important is it that I am….

I'll say this, and it'll sound like bullshit, but it's not: I don't really pay attention to this stuff [Man Booker Prize] very much. I think part of ….

If I'm in LA, I'm close to home, and that just brings up all these other things, good and bad. There is a reason why I am not there. That's what I ha….

Sometimes I highjack memories. Sometimes I switch them around. Sometimes they're just in the background, like some little bass note. Those things hav….

I can't say that I love writing, but I do love the satisfaction that it gives me..

The Sellout is about friends and relatives who have touched me in real ways..

I remember going to see Amiri Baraka. It wasn't actually too long before he died. He said, "You've got to write to change the world!" I was like, "No….

I forget how beautiful and calm California is. It's not so much about the place, but also the age that I came to the place and, well, other things. N….

I'm healthier in California, probably a little happier, maybe..

It's all the same for me, how I teach, how I write, how I think..

If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door..

I'm doing all these interviews with the British press, the Italian press, and others. They all want to talk about this stuff. I don't have a stance; ….

There are always so many things happening [to us] at one time. We read Isherwood's A Single Man in class, and we had to ask: How is he talking about ….

We don't act the same in every situation. Things bleed into all kinds of other things, from behavior to identity..

My dad fought in Korea. It was one of the first stories I remember hearing about..

In White Boy Shuffle, I combined my seventh-grade teacher, Mr. Takemoto, who really saved me - I don't think I've ever told anyone this - and my firs….

That's such a great book [Bloods]. That's a perfect way to articulate this thing that we're talking about. Just because someone is a black general, d….

I had a student once come up to me and we were talking about this incident, and, of course, I never had the right thing to say. But later on, I reali….