One definition of eternity is that we are not alone on this planet, that there are those who've gone before and those who will come, and that there is a community of spirits.

When I was young, I was older than I am today.

I grew up in Ohio, where civil-rights accomplishments had already begun to accelerate before Martin Luther King appeared. In hindsight, we know that many people, black and white, were instrumental in changing the Jim Crow status quo on all levels.

Being true to yourself really means being true to all the complexities of the human spirit.

I think reading Shakespeare's plays when I was young was extremely important. He had the ability to make utter strangers come alive.

I loved to write when I was a child. I wrote, but I always thought it was something that you did as a child, then you put away childish things.

The First Book: Go ahead, it won't bite. Well... maybe a little. More a nip, like. A tingle. It's pleasurable, really. You see, it keeps on opening. You may fall in. Sure, it's hard to get started; remember learning to use knife and fork? Dig in: you'll never reach bottom. It's not like it's the end of the world -- just the world as you think you know it.