Books are an attempt to control something that's uncontrollable. That's one of the beauties of African American life. There was this thing called slavery and adjustments were made. It literally destroyed millions, but it didn't destroy the inner lives of all the people who experienced it. There are still horrible things that go on because of the myth of race, but we don't have to succumb totally. If I had only a negative side of things to present, I think I would have much less of a drive to do it. Because what would be the point?

When it's played the way is supposed to be played, basketball happens in the air; flying, floating, elevated above the floor, levitating the way oppressed peoples of this earth imagine themselves in their dreams.

We're dreamers and - since we only have one life, and if we screw up we can get in a world of trouble - we're very intense dreamers.

My mother loved my father. From my view, she let him get away with too much. It broke my heart to see him in an old people's home and stop being strong and lose his voice.

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

If I had only a negative side of things to present, I think I would have much less of a drive to do it. Because what would be the point?

When you're at the basketball court watching a game, one person may be talking about a fight he had with his wife, another is talking about the last hard-on he got, someone else is talking about the presidential election. The language and the tone and the voice - I'd love to be able to capture that spontaneity.