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.

Nobody does anything for one reason.

I am not a ventriloquist.

My major allegiance has been to storytelling, not to history.

If you dedicate your attention to discipline in your life you become smarter while you are writing than while you are hanging out with your pals or in any other line of work.

Choose your agent as carefully as you would choose your accountant or lawyer. Or dentist.

Motivations are too tangled and complex.