You learn from music, from watching great athletes at work - how disciplined they are, how they move. You learn these things by watching a shortstop at work, how he concentrates on one thing at a time. You learn from classic music, from the blues and jazz, from bluegrass. From all this, you learn how to sustain a great line without bringing in unnecessary words.

You've got to bend with the wind or you're broken.

I write with as much objectivity as I can.

I believe that the writer should tell a story. I believe in plot. I believe in creating characters and suspense.

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

I want you to show them the difference between what they think you are and what you can be.

Now, about that mulatto teacher and me. There was no love there for each other. There was not even respect. We were enemies if anything. He hated me, and I knew it, and he knew I knew it. I didn't like him, but I needed him, needed him to tell me something that none of the others could or would.