I am a moralist. I worry.

We read about how Ajax and Achilles will die for each other, but very little about the friendship of women.

No gasp at a miracle that is truly miraculous because the magic lies in the fact that you knew it was there for you all along.

Black people's music is in a class by itself and always has been. There's nothing like it. The reason for that is because it was not tampered with by white people. It was not on the media. It was not anywhere except where black people were. And it is one of the art forms in which black people decided what is good in it. Nobody told them. What surfaced and what floated to the top, were the giants and the best.

If happiness is anticipation with certainty, we were happy.

Maybe [I care about language] because I'm an editor, maybe because I'm picky, but it's all we got, don't shrink it. Don't dumb it out, make it little.

When I write, I don't translate for white readers.... Dostoevski wrote for a Russian audience, but we're able to read him. If I'm specific, and I don't overexplain, then anyone can overhear me.