My greatest wish is that a certain way of looking at the world, a way I show in all of my books, gets into my readers' heads, and slowly alters their perception.

I am impressed when I go on the internet and see a lot of young people who've been influenced by the books, or I meet someone who tells me how it has changed their life. To me, that is much more real than sales figures.

As a writer you know you don't have to deal with a lot of the crap that most people deal with, the political things. Every couple of years when your book comes out then you have to go into these fights with the publisher and the publicist and that's it.

Hip-hop, you can't really do that when you're in your 50s.

In the opening stage of most careers any attention is what you want, any attention is good attention, even if it's bad attention.

Never take your position for granted and never let any favors you receive go to your head.

An ecosystem that has the maximum amount of diversity is the richest.