I'm always annoyed about why black people have to bear the brunt of everybody else's contempt. If we are not totally understanding and smiling, suddenly we're demons.

The formula for creative writing in high school or college is write what you know.

If you can only be tall because someone else is on their knees, then you have a serious problem. And white people have a very, very serious problem.

I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it.

Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.

I really think the range of emotions and perceptions I have had access to as a black person and as a female person are greater than those of people who are neither.... So it seems to me that my world did not shrink because I was a black female writer. It just got bigger.

I think there's data, and then there's information that comes from data, and then there's knowledge that comes from information. And then, after knowledge, there is wisdom. I am interested in how to get from data to wisdom.