When you do something that's going to speak to people, it's going to be because you're really allowing all of yourself to the table in an accepting way.

Equality has always been extant but some of us just didn't know it.

Whatever you love, that will be an influence. It just will. So in effect the young writer's job is: go out and find some stuff to love.

For me, the fiction writer's job is to take the small, stupid process of learning to use an iPhone - and suddenly you're the guy who's asking your daughter, "When I go on Facebook, can it see me?"

You go to the marketplace and there are seventeen consciousnesses moving in and out. Sometimes you want the same shirt that I want, and our thought bubbles collide a bit and that makes plot.

Toni Morrison seems to have a lot of faith in people - that's what I mean by gentle power.

If you bring forth what is within you, it will save you. If you do not bring it forth, it will destroy you.