It was mid-November 2008. There were pirates taking ships with impunity in African waters, terrorists punching holes in Indian security, China sinking towards depression because Americans were afraid to buy cheap goods for Christmas, and the richest nation in the history of the world was talking about how to keep a budget.

Chirren [children] is the most dangerous creatures on the earth, with the exception of young girls between the ages of fifteen and forty-two.

At one time if you were a black writer you had to be one of the best writers in the world to be published. You had to be great. Now you can be good. Mediocre. And that's good.

I took up writing to escape the drudgery of that every day cubicle kind of war.

My experience of people in dementia is that a lot of their personality, a lot of their knowledge, a lot of their experience is still there but there's not a direction connection that they can just reach out and get it and then bring it back.

Rest easy and go with the faith you lived with

I'm writing, I'm using language, I'm using that language to tell stories and even more so to get ideas across. And I just love that, and I've always loved that.