You know what needs to be done when you're a writer. You know what the job is, particularly if you're an African American writer, or if you deal with people, or if your subjects are poor people or people who need voice. So you don't really need to know whether or not you are doing the right thing. What you have to be wary of if you're doing the right thing to the right level that will surpass your own life. I'm hoping that my work will surpass my own life.

Family is the last and greatest discovery. It is our last miracle.

I think a lot of the history we've read up to this point, some of it is just off. It's written with the same prejudice that certain networks have when they report the news of the day.

Until you expose the cancer, you can't fix it.

Educate yourself or you'll be a nobody!

When you walk the significant land, the land speaks to you - even if it's 150 years later. You walk the earth and good things happen. There's always something to be said for going to a spot, even if there's nothing there. That's why you have a brain, your mind moves to other places when you're standing at an important spot.

Writing for me is cutting out the fat and getting to the meaning.