I come to the understanding that maybe what was on the inside was more important, and that your outer covering didn't count so much as folks thought it did, colored or white, man or woman.

I grew up in the church, and so I feel that God gave me certain things to do, and I'm lucky enough to kind of have figured those things out. I just don't want to die not having tried to help somebody else with what I know.

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

If you're going to cheat and take people's history and you're not writing the Bible, you ain't really so great. But if you try to do it in a way that doesn't hurt too many people, then you probably can get out of bed in the morning and look at yourself in the mirror.

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.

I come to the understanding that maybe what was on the inside was more important, and that your outer covering didn't count so much as folks thought it did, colored or white, man or woman.

Sometimes it seemed like the truth was a bandy-legged soul who dashed from one side of the world to the other and I could never find him.