These events are swirling around them. In the white community, people felt like they had no control over their neighborhoods, their destiny. In the black community, centuries of government and economic forces were pushing on them. I went in with a kind of arrogance, maybe, that came from living in a very intellectual family, and I left knowing that there was a lot about the way people lived that I didn't know about.

I wish I could remember where I put things. I spend half my life looking for my keys. With the other half I look for my glasses.

No agent wants to see a book until he or she has decided whether to pursue the relationship

The best source for finding an agent is called Literary Agents of North America. It's a complete list of agents, not only by name and address, but by type of book they represent and by what their submission criteria are.

When I enter a library, when I enter the world of books, I feel the ghosts of the past on my shoulders urging me to speech. I hear Patrick Henry cry to the Burgsses, 'Is Life so dear, or Peace so sweet, to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?' I hear Sojourner Truth tell me that the hand that rocks the cradle can also rock the boat, and William Lloyd Garrison say, 'I am in earnest, I will not be silenced.'

I'm a grandmother, and a mighty proud one.

I love to sing. I'm a soprano.