In contemporary American culture, the religions are more and more treated as just passing beliefs - almost as fads - rather than as the fundaments upon which the devout build their lives.

I think of my novels as entertainments.

When you shoot someone who is fleeing, it's not self-defense. It's an execution.

We often ask our citizens to split their public and private selves, telling them in effect that it is fine to be religious in private, but there is something askew when those private beliefs become the basis for public action.

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

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.

So much emotion goes into writing fiction.