You do what you can with what you have. You have to work the edges whatever they are. The main thing is keeping your integrity.

Being Black and poor is, I think, radically different from being anything else and poor. Poor, to most Blacks, is a state of mind. Those who accept it are poor; those who struggle are middle class.

Violence is like money in the bank; it's only helpful if you don't have to use it.

Photographers direct the eye toward a particular object. We who write, one hopes, are directing the heart and the soul.

If I can't do what I want to do, then my job is to not do what I want to do. It's not the same thing, but it's the best thing I can do.

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

I had a really nice childhood; I had great parents. I earned my allowance by washing dishes, and in the summer I earned my allowance by working in daddy's garden.