If you are born black, it is better to be born now than in any other time in United States history. My grandson is black. His life is a different life than if he had been born when I was born.

I am not a ventriloquist.

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

But on the other hand, I don't actively seek out stories or hunt them down.

Boys like it when you talk to them as if they were grown men—at least he always did when he was a kid—because they pretend that’s what they are anyhow, grown-up men, and they do it for their entire lives.

There is a wonderful intelligence to the unconscious. It’s always smarter than we are.

Our sins describe us, and our prohibitions describe our sins.