He told us that most of us would die violently, and those who did not would be brought down to the level of beasts.

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

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.

I try to write something that would interest anybody and keep them turning the page. You must have a plot and good storyline.

"You going back," she said. "You ain't going to run away from this, Grant."

The sharecropper may lower his eyes, but not because he's less of a man. That's just a condition of society that such things exist.

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