Rumor is rarely more interesting than fact, but it is always more readily available.

I think that black fiction authors have to work very hard to avoid being typed as seeking only a black audience.

Even in 2012, if there's a black character in the movies or on television that's a professional, if we even hear about their backgrounds they're always 'up from the streets.

To be black and an intellectual in America is to live in a box. On the box is a label, not of my own choosing.

If you're fascinated by America, you'll be fascinated by family.

There is much depressing evidence that the religious voice is required to stay out of the public square only when it is pressed in a conservative cause.

Love is a gift we deliver when we would rather not.