Nietzsche said without music, life would be a mistake. To me, without books, life would be a mistake.

I have learned as much about writing about my people by listening to blues and jazz and spirituals as I have by reading novels.

And that's all we are Jefferson, all of us on this earth, a piece of drifting wood. until we - each of us, individually- decide to become something else. I am still that piece of drifting wood, and those out there are no better. But you can be better.

Question everything. Every stripe, every star, every word spoken. Everything.

I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to say something about home.

All writers write about the past, and I try to make it come alive so you can see what happened.

Words mean nothing. Action is the only thing. Doing. That's the only thing.