Nobody warned me that when you fall in love, you really fall in love forever.

Now people like Susan Sarandon are noticing that people of color live this way?! This is the way I've always lived! What's happened is that it has now reached a level of national discourse where it's on the table. But they've never minded that we were treated like this off-stage.

When she smiles niggers ask her for her hand in marriage; when I smile folks check their wallets.

I find reading to be a delight, a source of comfort, a way to explore.

I think that most of us are aware that as writers we are seeking absences, we're seeking silences, we're seeking spaces that people haven't entered. No writer is saying, "Hey, I want to go to this very well trod territory and say exactly what someone else has done." I think the nature of a writer, because we are attempting to bring to light areas that people haven't seen before, tends in some ways to be progressive, at least in that light.

Because I can't seem to escape it. It's a way for me to address and counter my questions about what it means to be human, or, in my case a Dominican human who grew up in New Jersey.

The thing is - do we really need another writer who writes a book every eighteen months, whether the quality is wonderful or not? I mean, maybe. But I can name twenty off the top of my head who do it. Maybe what we need is a writer like me who goes very slow, as well.