I know that my books are worthy, which is separate from me.

When a man angers you, he conquers you.

You have to be willing to think the unthinkable.

But to find out the truth about how dreams die, one should never take the word of the dreamer.

The vitality of language lies in its ability to limn the actual, imagined and possible lives of its speakers, readers, writers.

Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.

Of course I'm a black writer... I'm not just a black writer, but categories like black writer, woman writer and Latin American writer aren't marginal anymore. We have to acknowledge that the thing we call "literature" is more pluralistic now, just as society ought to be. The melting pot never worked. We ought to be able to accept on equal terms everybody from the Hasidim to Walter Lippmann, from the Rastafarians to Ralph Bunche.