You don't spend twenty years of your life in the service and not have a warm, nostalgic feeling left in you. It's a small service, and there's a lot of esprit de corps.

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

I travel a lot. It used to be, when I would go to any country, I could guarantee that the first question would establish my name, and the fact that I've written Roots, and the third question, at least no later than the fourth question would not be a question, so much as a statement, something like, "We understand that in America white people do such and such bad things to black people."

I think most people when you say slavery tend to see a group of anonymous people pulling cotton sacks in great plantation fields, and that is largely true.

When you start about family, about lineage and ancestry, you are talking about every person on earth.

Beginning writers must appreciate the prerequisites if they hope to become writers. You pay your dues - which takes years.

I tell younger writers that indeed it is devastating to be rejected. You feel like the bottom dropped out of your world.