What's fascinated me from the time I was a little kid was the way we construct our lives through stories.

It turns out one of my ancestors fought in the Continental Army, so I was inducted into the Sons of the American Revolution.

The act of writing for the slave constituted the act of creating a public, historical self, not only the self of the individual author but also the self, as it were, of the race.

Learning to sing one's own songs, to trust the particular cadences of own's voices, is also the goal of any writer.

If you don't tell your stories, other people will tell their story about you. It's important that we nurture and protect these memories. Things change. Existence means change.

It's fascinating how life works.

The story of the African-American people is the story of the settlement and growth of America itself, a universal tale that all people should experience.