I have so many favorite writers, it's very hard to select a few... of classic writers, I have always admired Emily Dickinson and Henry David Thoreau.

. . . there is a wish in the heart of mankind to be distracted and confused. Truth is but one attraction, and not always the most powerful.

Memory blurs, that's the point. If memory didn't blur you wouldn't have the fool's courage to do things again, again, again, that tear you apart.

My writing is full of lives I might have led.

the music was always in the background, like music at a church service; it was something to depend upon.

The other book that I worry no one reads anymore is James Joyce's Ulysses. It's not easy, but every page is wonderful and repays the effort. I started reading it in high school, but I wasn't really able to grasp it. Then I read it in college. I once spent six weeks in a graduate seminar reading it. It takes that long. That's the problem. No one reads that way anymore. People may spend a week with a book, but not six.

Yes, 'Black Girl/White Girl' might be described as a 'coming-of-age' novel, at least for the survivor Genna. It is also intended as a comment on race relations in America more generally: we are 'roommates' with one another, but how well do we know one another?