A woman, no matter the age, is always learning, always becoming. But a man . . . stops learning at fourteen or so.

Until I can read a story physically, with the eyes, it doesn't seem to exist for me.

At first I read mostly books by Southern authors - black and white - because almost all the people I knew were born and raised in the South, starting with my mother. I remember I got a lot of Erskine Caldwell.

Whenever people in that part of the world asked Patterson about the wonders of America, the possibilities and the hope of America, Patterson would say that it was a good and fine place but all the Americans were running it into the ground and that it would be a far better place if it had no Americans.

In journalism, a fact is just a fact. But in fiction, you have to build your case. It has to be made, step by step.

A woman, no matter the age, is always learning, always becoming. But a man . . . stops learning at fourteen or so.

We are all worthy of one another.