I am a huge fan of the Black woman. I never hesitate to recommend her when times are bad or things go wrong.

My work is a part of me and I know it. I have no reason to try to pick one part of me out from the rest. I only see my work, or rather I should say I see my work only telling my part of the human experience.

I think one of the nicest things that we created as a generation was just the fact that we could say, 'Hey, I don't like white people.'

We [Black people] have always used our creativity to battle and we're not the only ones. Black Americans are certainly leaders in that simply because we were denied education and dealt with enforced illiteracy. But people seem to always forget that literacy is not the only way of learning things or conveying knowledge.

School should be eleven months of the year.

And like an unfaithful mate, once a car has let you down you never sort of trust it again.

Nothing improves your writing, I think, as much as your keeping writing.