What I do know is sometimes we love the wrong people and sometimes we marry them.

I would like to think that as a result of not just my own experiences, but at least being empathetic and compassionate about other people's experiences and plights and tragedies, that I am affected by it and learn from it.

I love writing in first person more than third. I have to basically suspend my own world. I don't exist. I'm just a conduit. So I can be eight years old. I can be the mother of a kid that you find out certain things I'm not going to say.

As far as young kids go, my primary interest is to get parents to read to their kids. That’s about the most you can do, I think.

Wherever there's a prison, for the most part, especially where there's Black people, it's overcrowded. I don't know who really gets out.

I remember the day I turned thirty. I was getting out of the shower and I stood in front of the mirror and stared at myself for a long time. I examined every inch of my body and appreciated the fact that I finally looked like a grown woman. I also assumed that this was how I was going to look for the rest of my life. The way I saw it, I was never going to age; I'd just look up one day and be old.

Look, as my mama always said, 'One monkey don't stop no show.