The hardship, the pain, the suffering of my brother and my son in prison, that's absolutely their experience, that's not mine. I don't get any credit for enduring that. I never give myself any credit for enduring that.

One of the earliest lessons I learned as a child was that if you looked away from something, it might not be there when you looked back.

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

The hardship, the pain, the suffering of my brother and my son in prison, that's absolutely their experience, that's not mine. I don't get any credit for enduring that. I never give myself any credit for enduring that.

I'm still divided in my principles and what I think is right and what I'm actually able to do, whether talking about writing or being a citizen or being a husband or being a father. And I'm trying to get better.

I had a deep prejudice against the South. It's taken me many years to get over that, be more open and thoughtful.

A great artist transforms our world, removes scales from our eyes, plugs from our ears, gloves from our fingertips and teaches us to perceive reality differently.