You Don't Start Out Writing Good Stuff.

I'm A Pessimist If I'm Not Careful, A Feminist, A Black,...an Oil-and-water Combination Of Ambition, Laziness, Insecurity, Certainty, And Drive.

I Was Attracted To Science Fiction Because It Was So Wide Open. I Was Able To Do Anything And There Were No Walls To Hem You In And There Was No Human Condition That You Were Stopped From Examining.

I'm A Fifty-three-year-old Writer Who Can Remember Being A Ten-year-old Writer And Who Expects Someday To Be An Eighty-year-old Writer.

I Wanted To Write A Novel That Would Make Others Feel The History: The Pain And Fear That Black People Have Had To Live Through In Order To Endure.

Civilization Is To Groups What Intelligence Is To Individuals. It Is A Means Of Combining The Intelligence Of Many To Achieve Ongoing Group Adaptation. Civilization, Like Intelligence, May Serve Well, Serve Adequately, Or Fail To Serve Its Adaptive Function. When Civilization Fails To Serve, It Must Disintegrate Unless It Is Acted Upon By Unifying Internal Or External Forces.