I really think that the joy for the creator, for the writer, for whatever artist you are, is to make something that's seemingly ugly and find the beauty in it.

I wouldn’t necessarily assume that because companies or people who hire you are using the term “feminist,” that they are automatically aligned with your own understanding of politics or gender. It should raise more questions that you should interrogate further.

It’s a temporal immediacy sure, and a language thing, but also (and this is something I write about in Feed) the average age of death on my reservation is 40.7 years old. I wasn’t raised with the idea that I have a shit ton of time to just think shit over. I need the poetry of “now” to happen now.

Love isn’t “found” outside ourselves. Love is created within us; to love you find your way to your own heart. Keep your heart as open as you can even when you need to protect it. Love keeps us connected—to other humans, other beings, and to the spirit in the cosmos. Love is linked to beauty, so don’t be afraid to express that.

Subversion isn’t an end in itself for me, but finding an accurate way to express a thought may often entail refreshing or recreating its method.

What is important to me is that the piece is completely formed, fully developed, finished, solid. Then it has its own identity and life, and where it may have come from does not matter.

Ethnic density is the idea that, for an immigrant, living in a neighborhood with few immigrants is worse—as a trigger for psychosis—than living in an entirely immigrant neighborhood.

When I think of fluency, how it is presented in applications, fluency is when you can comprehend the language insomuch that you can speak it, you can converse in it, and you can write in it; your ability to engage in daily conversations within that language.

The imagination is the most precious thing we have; it is essential to the fulfillment of our destinies. It is the expression of the life force, the breath of Eros.

It is a wonderful thing to be able to save reality from loss.

There’s a Nine Inch Nails song I always loved called “The Way Out is Through.” I think that title sums up my idea of transcendence. To progress, to change, but not by leaving anything behind. To be truly in this world and to let this world into you.