I'm an African-American writer, I'm a lazy writer, I'm a writer who likes to watch The Wire, I'm a writer who likes to eat a lot of steak.

There will be no redemption because the men who run this place do not want redemption. They want to be as near to hell as they can.

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.

Sanctimony and self-regard are as American as smallpox blankets and supersize meals.

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

The city knows you better than any living person because it has seen you when you are alone.

I always have a few ideas that are percolating, and then after I've finished a book and it's a year later, and things are sort of festering and things are disgusting in my house and I have to get back to work, whatever project I keep thinking about is the one I end up working on. Sort of a very simple process of elimination.