You know how women have this clock when they want to have a baby? I had this clock where I wanted to win a national award by thirty, be at a big press by thirty-five. I was always working with these self-driven goals.

If you have potato chips, that means, "Who's coming over?"Wealthy people - white people who're wealthy - have a bag of potato chips that's folded over with a clip. "What? There's some left over?" In my house, if there was a bag of potato chips, we'd pour it in a bowl and everybody would just dip in till it was gone.

It's what's available to the poor communities. They do buy healthy stuff, you know, but the lettuce is usually iceberg lettuce and to get any taste, they have to use all that ranch dressing.

Books are medicine and you have to take the right medicine that you need at that moment or that day or that time in your life.

We have all this courage as writers, but then there's this fear.

You know, you want to be outrageous when you're young, so all the young people say, "Oooh . . ." Now my tactics are different.

Get yourself empty in the Eastern sense. Not in the Western sense. In the Western sense when we feel empty we feel lonely, miserable, but in the Eastern sense - "I'm so empty, because I'm filled with everything, and I'm connected to everything." It's very energizing. You want that kind of emptiness, whatever you have to do to get yourself quiet.