I can see criticizing, complaining, protesting - anything but choosing not to vote. Too many people died for us not to vote.

I think that the Vietnam War era is important because we tend not to want to revisit it. For black people, there was the temptation of disaffection. People looked for alternative ways to express themselves personally and politically, people doubted the system, and there was the terrible kind of division in black America between a radical leadership and a much older, compromising leadership.

Home is the place where there is somebody who does not wish you any pain.

Marriage equality is a very middle-class issue and voting rights is a very working-class issue. If you do not vote, who are you speaking for? Who will be the next Fannie Lou Hamer? If not you or someone you know, then who?

When you're writing fiction it's a heightened voice. You're trying to cast a spell, which isn't the same thing as trying to cast someone into it. You are creating a reality but it's a different sort of performance.

Criticism shouldn't be a performance that upstages the work it's talking about.

If you're bored, your readers will be bored. If you're faking it, you won't get the kind of readers you want.