In our sensible zeal to keep religion from dominating our politics, we have created a political and legal culture that presses the religiously faithful to be other than themselves, to act publicly, and sometimes privately as well, as though their faith does not matter to them.

Teasing out the way the world might look through another's eyes is what makes the creative process so fascinating and enjoyable.

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.

So much emotion goes into writing fiction.

This trivializing rhetoric runs the subtle but unmistakable message: pray if you like, worship if you must, but whatever you do, do not on any account take your religion seriously.

We do not credit to the ideal of religious freedom when we talk as though religious belief is something of which public-spirited adults should be ashamed.

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.