A book is not an end in itself; it is only a way to touch someone - a bridge extended across a space of loneliness and obscurity - and sometimes it is a way of winning other people to our causes.

Now of course we have Black historians, but they're usually men. We get the perspective always, the slanted perspective, of what has happened. The battles, the things achieved, the laws, but where are the people, the families? What happens inside the houses, inside the minds and the hearts? That's what I'm interested in.

People think that they will sit down and produce the great American novel in one sitting. It doesn't work that way. This is a very patient and meticulous work, and you have to do it with joy and love for the process, not for the outcome.

Just as when we come into the world, when we die we are afraid of the unknown. But the fear is something from within us that has nothing to do with reality. Dying is like being born: just a change.

Roots are not in landscape or a country, or a people, they are inside you.

A novel is like a window, open to an infinite landscape.

Empowering women means trusting them.