My grandfather had asked me many times whether I'd like to come to South Carolina with him. He wanted to introduce me to our people down there and I didn't want to go. In those days, the South was still a place where black kids were lynched. Something horrible could happen to you. I've had that feeling my whole life.

I really love James Joyce, Dubliners and other work. And I was interested in the way the dash was used in English topography - in his work particularly - and I realized there was no compulsion to use those ugly dot-dot curlicues all over the place to designate dialogue. I began to look around, and found writers who could make transitions quite clear by the language itself. I'm a bit of a maverick now. I'm always trying to push the medium.

I can't pretend that I did one really awful thing - I took a bite out of the apple but now I'm never going to sin again.

Even in my adult years, when I heard a white person speaking in a Southern accent I was initially suspicious.

There's something human that has to do with time and space and being who I am that is in progress and always will be in progress. And who I am, on different days, different moments, depends on different aspects of my past.

To be a survivor as an African American man - maybe any man - you have to be pretty tough. Or at least that's what we all understand.

I believe - what did Faulkner say? "The past is not even past."