The people who invented race, who grouped us together as "black," were inventing and categorizing their ability to do something vicious and wrong.

I had come to feel that my mother's love for me was designed solely to make me into an echo of her; and I didn't know why, but I felt that I would rather be dead than become just an echo of someone.

My writing has always been met with derision or dismissal.

Every time I end a book, I look down at myself.

But you know, where did the Brontes go to college? Where did George Eliot go to college? Where did Thomas Paine or Thomas Jefferson or George Washington go? Did George Washington go to college? This idea which we now have that people ought to have these credentials is really ridiculous. Where did Homer go to college?

I read about writers who have routines. They write at certain times of the day. I can't do that. I am always writing-but in my head.

People don't make changes because things are wonderful.