New York City in life was much like New York City in death. It was still hard to get a cab, for example.

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.

I write books and either people read them or they don't read them. The rise of Facebook or e-books doesn't change the difficulty level of writing sentences and thinking up new ideas.

A society manufactures the heroes it requires.

A lot of people, when they first hear about the Underground Railroad, think it really is a subway or a locomotive. When they find out it's not, they feel a little disappointed. So I thought, What if it was a literal underground train network traveling from state to state, with each state it goes through representing a different opportunity or danger?

The Declaration of Independence is that sacred American text so full of meaning and purpose and yet quite empty if you examine it and pull it apart because the words "All Men" exclude a vast number of citizens.

For years I felt that I wasn't ready to take on slavery. It's a huge topic, and I didn't want to mess it up.