My novels and poems are meant to be read aloud. That's why jazz musicians have been able to adapt my stuff.

I have Black guys who tell me they put my books on their bed stands to read at night like something for guidance or information. That really pleases me a lot. I think my work has changed some things. It's changed me.

One of the joys of reading is the ability to plug into the shared wisdom of mankind.

How does the [New York] Times treat White pathology? They reported an epidemic of heroin addiction in the Philadelphia suburbs. which included emergency admissions and overdoses; these White people in the suburbs were doing heroin like it was going out of style. I counted the words: the article consisted of 200 words. "Heroin Epidemic" in the back section. Out here in California, the typical drug addict is a housewife or suburban White woman.

I use non-fiction work written by Whites in my research. It's indispensable. That wasn't the problem. I said that "The Wire" was a cliché! It's like my writing a series about Jewish life and casting all of the characters as inside traders.

The liberal wing of the feminist movement may have improved the lives of its middle- and upper-class constituency--indeed, 1992 was the Year of the White Middle Class Woman--but since the leadership of this faction of the feminist movement has singled out black men as the meta-enemy of women, these women represent one of the most serious threats to black male well-being since the Klan.

Americans are fickle. And what constitutes the enemy is always changing. Believe it or not, at one time Blacks were the favored model minority over Asian Americans.