If you write nonfiction, a historical account of what really happened, first of all, it's always White men who do that and you don't have the voices that are really interesting to me, of the people who are not sheltered by the big umbrella of the establishment.

We all have an unsuspected reserve of strength inside that emerges when life puts us to the test.

The fastest-growing population in the United States is the older people, because we are living much longer, healthier lives. The problem is, individuals often don't have the resources to take care of older people as they age. This is something that is happening, and we have to deal with it. It was happening also in my life.

write with honesty and don't worry about the feelings of others, because no matter what you say, they'll hate you anyway.

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.

There's basically an element of fiction in everything you remember. Imagination and memory are almost the same brain processes. When I write fiction, I know that I'm using a bunch of lies that I've made up to create some form of truth. When I write a memoir, I'm using true elements to create something that will always be somehow fictionalized.

Only that, nothing more - a tiny beam of light to show some hidden aspect of reality, to help decipher and understand it and thus to initiate, if possible, a change in the conscience of some readers.