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

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 certainly wasn't seeking any degree, the way a college confers a status symbol upon its students. My homemade education gave me, with every additional book that I read, a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America. Not long ago, an English writer telephoned me, asking questions. One was, "What's your alma mater?" I told him, "Books.

The way to succeed is never quit. Thats it. But really be humble about it.

That's what happens with writing. Ingredients bubble and cook. Material becomes substance.

Early in the spring of 1750, in the village of Juffure, four days upriver from the coast of The Gambia, West Africa, a manchild was born to Omoro and Binta Kinte.

The main thing you got to remember is that everything in the world is a hustle.