Tying the little folks with the older folks is a great and powerful tool to preserve and to protect the family and the individual.

Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you.

Roots is not just a saga of my family. It is the symbolic saga of a people.

My parents were teachers and they went out of their way to see to it that I had books. We grew up in a home that was full of books. And so I learned to read. I loved to read.

I am really quite proud of most of the people I " know who have "made it," who do things to help people.

Raw, naked truth exchanged between the black man and the white man is what a whole lot more of is needed in this country - to clear the air of the racial mirages, cliches, and lies that this country's very atmosphere has been filled with for four hundred years.

In my writing, as much as I could, I tried to find the good, and praise it.