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

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.

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.

More than 20 years on, sustained competition, informed customers and the rapid growth of new technology provide the necessary environment for substantial deregulation.

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.

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

The very aspect of religions that many of their critics most fear - that the religiously devout, in the name of their faith, take positions that differ from approved state policy - is one of their strengths.