God gived you the seed. But the watering and caring of that seed is up to you.

I can write anywhere really. I have a hard time writing when the birds are tweeting and the brooks are running outside. I've tried that several times, for months at a time, trying to write in a quiet, wonderful place where birds are twittering and coffee's brewing. And nothing happens. But if I'm in an old dump like my old apartment and I can't find my fingernail clippers and nothing's working except the old tea maker, that's just great. You always have to find and live in a place that's a little uncomfortable when you're a writer. You need a burr in your side.

My parents were nonmaterialistic. They believed that money without knowledge was worthless, that education tempered with religion was the way to climb out of poverty in America, and over the years they were proven right.

It's the same old story. Nothing in this world happens unless white folks says it happens. And therein lies the problem of being a professional black storyteller - writer, musician, filmmaker.

I'm trying to educate people about things that I believe are right, and some of the things that I believe are right might not be right, so I live in constant self-doubt. I think that creates a kind of search that you have to have, and it prevents you from doing a lot of stuff that you would normally do.

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.

God gived you the seed. But the watering and caring of that seed is up to you.