Even jealousy is based on fantasies: a fantasy that someone else has what belongs to you.

Suddenly in high school, I'm in a predominantly Jewish atmosphere. Jewish people were my gate to white America.

I feel like my work has been my path to freedom from having grown up in a segregated environment.

I would love to have been a documentary filmmaker; I just didn't have the resources to do that.

Some people study a text very deeply. The people are my text. I study their words and what their words sound like, over and over again.

Poverty makes it very difficult in an already competitive world for kids to get on a straight track where they can actually love learning.

I am interested in personal stories because that's when people become expressive, spontaneous and heartfelt.