Be Kind To The Living.

The Thing That I Do Is That When I Fail, I Just Keep Quiet About It. I Just Let It Go. It's Done. I Just Go To The Next Thing. I Don't Complain, I Don't Go To - I Pick My Battles Very, Very Judiciously, And I Just Assume That There's Good In The Heart Of Everybody.

It Was Always So Hot, And Everyone Was So Polite, And Everything Was All Surface But Underneath It Was Like A Bomb Waiting To Go Off. I Always Felt That Way About The South, That Beneath The Smiles And Southern Hospitality And Politeness Were A Lot Of Guns And Liquor And Secrets.

Writing For Me Is Cutting Out The Fat And Getting To The Meaning.

I'm One Of The Few Black Writers, Or African American Writers, Who Managed To Work My Way Through The System So That It Has Allowed Me To Speak In A Kind Of Free Way. But Most African American Writers Don't Have That. They Don't Have That Opportunity, They Don't Have That.

Slavery Was A Web Of Relationships, And If People Knew How Thick The Whole Business Was, They Would Not Make Fun Of People Like Harriet Tubman. They Would Understand How Intelligent She Was And How Sharp.