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.

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.

I really dislike it when people talk about "experimental," because any good writer is experimental.

My father combined many of the elements that were feared in the culture, but also he was a warm figure, a figure we needed. We depended on him to give us a little bit of strength and courage.

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.

As a reader, I do not like to have everything handed to me. Because after a while it gets formulaic and I'm thinking, "If this is so thought through, then why do I need to read it. It's done!" It becomes a beach book at a certain point.

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.