I was raised by a lady that was crippled all her life but she did everything for me and she raised me. She washed our clothes, cooked our food, she did everything for us. I don't think I ever heard her complain a day in her life. She taught me responsibility towards my brother and sisters and the community.

Only when the mind is free has the body a chance to be free. Yes, they must believe, they must believe. Because I know what it means to be a slave. I am a slave.

Anytime a child is born, the old people look in his face and ask him if he's the One.

We wait till now? Now, when we're old men, we get to be brave?

We all have much more in common than we have difference. I would say that about people all over the world. They don't know how much in common that they have

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

I have learned as much about writing about my people by listening to blues and jazz and spirituals as I have from reading novels. The understatements in the tenor saxophone of Lester Young, the crystal, haunting, forever searching sounds of John Coltrane, and the softness and violence of Count Basie's big band - all have fired my imagination as much as anything in literature.