"When you know something, you know it, and when you don't, you don't. And you can't fake it."

"When you get to be my age, you realize that people are not all that different."

"My work is to make sure that the people I'm writing about are human, and that they are complex, and that they are not stereotypes."

"Navigating without a compass, which is to say, without a clear idea of what is right and what is wrong, is a dangerous business."

"I'm a black writer. I'm not a writer who happens to be black."