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.

The fact people think that when you sell a lot of books you are not a serious writer is a great insult to the readership. I get a little angry when people try to say such a thing.

Friendship is all about trust and sharing. Passionate and romantic love is all about sex and emotions. You have to try to combine those, I think. The great marriages, the great couples I know, have both.

She intended to swallow the world and he lived crushed by reality.

Just as Daniel Balalcazar said, it makes no sense to suffer in advance a misfortune that may never occur.

Sometimes journalists ask me, "What's the message?" There is no message. I think that fiction should not be trying to give messages. Just tell a story.

You spend the first part of your life collecting things ... and the second half getting rid of them.