“One by one the idols of other nations visited us, but those with­out a Yankee sponsor barely registered as blips on the scale of mass appeal.”

‘The “secret” to her success is that she is able to simultaneously be and represent different things to different people’

“I celebrate having been a witness to her life, and mourn her passing because she was special, and we may not see her equal again.”

‘The consistency with which Ellison wrote smart, complex stories in his own unique voice stands out as proof that he belongs in the mainstream literary canon as much as Poe, Camus, Baldwin, or Austen’

‘In a community that attracts atheists, Wiccans, CIA agents, physicists, semioticians, libertines, libertarians, and unrepentant Trotskyites, one might anticipate a few political debates’

Even her detractors can’t deny the palpable strength of will that makes “Invasion of Privacy” vibrate with personality

The late author was obsessed with the nuances of language, and how words can shape the beliefs and behavior of entire civilizations