If there had never been the Great Migration there would never have been jazz, there would never have been Michelle Obama. A lot of amazing black people exist in this country because of the Great Migration. That's nation-building.

The correlations between real life experience and the storylines in novels are never as direct or simple as they might seem.

Racial terrorism affects the lives of white people and black people and everyone, everything. Racism is contaminating. It can affect the dogs in the street. So the process of beginning to rid the country of prejudice was in itself a kind of nation-building.

I think being consistent is really important. In the arts there's a misconception that you sit around waiting for the muse to come, and that it's all really mystical and mysterious. In reality, sometimes you have to fake it till you make it.

One thing I am learning is to slow down. Multitasking is great, but I when try to do everything at warp speed I just end up with typos and stress.

The critics and the reviewers are more frightening than anything else!

In America, and no doubt elsewhere, we have such a tendency toward the segregation of cultural products. This is a black book, this is a gay book, this is an Asian book. It can be counterproductive both to the literary enterprise and to people's reading, because it can set up barriers. Readers may think, "Oh, I'm a straight man from Atlanta and I'm white, so I won't enjoy that book because it's by a gay black woman in Brooklyn." They're encouraged to think that, in a way, because of the categorization in the media.