Why Do I Write? The Truth, The

You Can't Teach Talent. You Can't Put In What God Left Out - But You Can Teach Confidence.

One Should Be Able To Return To The First Sentence Of A Novel And Find The Resonances Of The Entire Work.

There Is A Problem In America. An Irish Or Polish American Can Write A Story And It's An American Story. When A Black American Writes A Story, It's Called A Black Story. I Take Exception To That. Every Artist Has Articulated To His Own Experience. The Problem Is That Some People Do Not See Blacks As Americans.

Time Is A Funny Thing. I Was Always Puzzled With The Way A Single Day Could Stretch Itself Out To The Point Of Eternity In Your Mind, All While Years Melted Down Into The Fraction Of A Second.

In A Contest Between New Technology And Old Ways Of Life, It Is The Traditional Rhythms That Will Hold. Traditional Societies Make Up More Than Two-thirds Of The World, The Two-thirds That Will Not Be Going Online To "save" Time But Will Remain Wedded To The Knowledge That If The Bus Doesn't Come That Day, It Will Come Someday. After All, There Is Nothing But Time.