I felt no obligation to bow to any 21st Century political correctness. What I did feel an obligation to do was to take the 21stCentury viewers and physically transport them back to the ante bellum South in 1858, in Mississippi, and have them look at America for what it was back then. And I wanted it to be shocking.

To be a novelist, all I need is a pen and a piece of paper.

I am not going to tell you how I believe, but I do believe in God.

I'm a big collector of vinyl - I have a record room in my house - and I've always had a huge soundtrack album collection.

I don't have to play the song all the way to the very end - I use it while it's good and while it's cool and while it's exciting, and then I get out.

I just don't feel the whole white guilt and pussy-footing around race issues. I'm completely above all that. I've never worried about what anyone might think of me 'cause I've always believed that the true of heart recognize the true of heart.

It's my job to look at other people's humanity and it's my job to, 24/7, look at my life and listen to everything everyone says, watching their faces, the little idiosyncratic aspects of human beings - it's like a sponge, I take it in.