Loyalty is weird, it kicks in when you dont expect it and the people who deserve loyalty least seem to get it the most.

And there are people who want to be writers because they love to write. And they care.

I am aware of the changes, but in no sense am I believer that we live in a post-racial society. That's a description of our inheritance and that is theirs, which is inescapable. It is doesn't matter if you are from New England or Mississippi. You're an American. It doesn't matter if you are white, black, brown, or Asian. It is part of American society. You'd have to be blind, deaf, or dumb not to know it. The emphasis on color or the fear of it, is all part of the same dark flower. I am trying to point to that and to bring it all the way back from Senegal.

First of all it's usually women who run these higher primate sanctuaries, rarely men. They are white. They come from privileged backgrounds. They are educated.

And out of a desire essentially to imitate what I was reading, I began to write, like a clever monkey.

The best thing about writing programs is that it rationalized the apprenticeship of a writer.

Luck can't last a lifetime unless you die young.