I heard a white writer say, 'Oh, I'd never put black people in my writing, I'm afraid I would offend someone by doing it wrong.' I can't bear that!

Teaching is very important to me, and it has become more important as I get older.

I actually think it's sometimes easier for the control freaks to let loose.

We still have so many cultures in which people are imprisoned and whipped and killed for writing what they think.

I've been astonished how often, when I convince a writer to tell a story more straightforwardly and to tell it more simply and directly, it turns out that this author is great and the story is wonderful.

It's hard to say which of us is luckier, the ones who go through long periods when they can't write or the ones who can write pretty easily.

I began to see, again and again, stories that were first confusing and second where the emotional impact was muted because the big scene came before the explanation of what was going on. There was a reverse chronological order as well as a concealment of what exactly was going on. I think often that comes out of the fear of being boring, and sometimes I think it's just an attempt to seem clever.