Every time an old person dies, it's like a library burning down.

Many a young person tells me he wants to be a writer. I always encourage such people, but I also explain that there's a big difference between being a writer and writing. In most cases these individuals are dreaming of wealth and fame, not the long hours alone at the typewriter. You've got to want to write, I say to them, not want to be a writer. The reality is that writing is a lonely, private and poor-paying affair. For every writer kissed by fortune, there are thousands more whose longing is never requited. Even those who succeed often know long periods of neglect and poverty. I did.

The anti-blackness has generated new forms of youth involvement in anti-whiteness, which in some cases is appalling.

I know that statistically, it has been proven that there is a tremendous amount of black on black crime within the inner cities.

Racism and hatred are synonymous.

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.

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