My Major Allegiance Has Been To Storytelling,

What I Am Finding Now Is That My Audience Is Getting Younger As I Get Older, Which Is A Very Good Thing As You Know - You Don't Want Them To Get Older As You Get Older.

For Almost Anyone Who Chooses To Be A Writer, Since So Very Few Writers Are Able To Learn A Living From Their Work That Is Equivalent To The Living Earned By The Average Dentist Or Accountant.

I Am Aware Of The Changes, But In No Sense Am I Believer That We Live In A Post-racial Society. That's A Description Of Our Inheritance And That Is Theirs, Which Is Inescapable. It Is Doesn't Matter If You Are From New England Or Mississippi. You're An American. It Doesn't Matter If You Are White, Black, Brown, Or Asian. It Is Part Of American Society. You'd Have To Be Blind, Deaf, Or Dumb Not To Know It. The Emphasis On Color Or The Fear Of It, Is All Part Of The Same Dark Flower. I Am Trying To Point To That And To Bring It All The Way Back From Senegal.

A Couple Of Years I Taught In Graduate Programs At Nyu And Columbia, In The Early Eighties.

What You Believe Matters, However. It’s All Anyone Has To Act On. And Since What You Do Is Who You Are, Your Actions Define You. If You Don’t Believe Anything Is True Simply Because You Can’t Logically Prove What’s True, You Won’t Do Anything. You Won’t Be Anything. You’ll End Up Spending Your Life In A Rocking Chair Looking Out At The Horizon Waiting For An Answer That Never Comes. You Might As Well Be Dead. It’s An Old Philosophical Problem.