Only white men have the luxury of ignoring race.

In 25 years of writing novels, I've never had anything that felt like writer's block.

I don't mind arguing with myself. It's when I lose that it bothers me.

This idea that a book can either be about character and feeling, or about politics and idea, is just a false binary. Ideas are an expression of the feelings and the intense emotions we hold about the world.

I write the way you might arrange flowers. Not every try works, but each one launches another. Every constraint, even dullness, frees up a new design.

For me, university was just awful because it was closing one door after the other of all these candy shops of professional possibilities.

We will live with racism for ever. But senses of self, senses of belonging, senses of us and of others? Those are up for grabs.