It is failure that guides evolution; perfection provides no incentive for improvement, and nothing is perfect.

When I was a kid, I'd go to the African-American section in the bookstore, and I'd try and find African-American people I hadn't read before. So in that sense the category was useful to me. But it's not useful to me as I write. I don't sit down to write an African-American zombie story or an African-American story about elevators. I'm writing a story about elevators which happens to talk about race in different ways. Or I'm writing a zombie novel which doesn't have that much to do with being black in America. That novel is really about survival.

New York City does not hold our former selves against us. Perhaps we can extend the same courtesy.

In other words, fiction is payback for those who have wronged you.

It is failure that guides evolution; perfection provides no incentive for improvement, and nothing is perfect.

As I get older and write more books I'm definitely allowing the humorous side of my personality more rein in my work.

I'd never been much of an athlete, due to a physical condition I'd had since birth (unathleticism). Perhaps if there were a sport centered around lying on your couch in a neurotic stupor all day, I'd take an interest.