"I'm not interested in writing about happy people. I'm interested in writing about real people."

"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."

"Racism is a construct, a social construct, and it has a motive. It has a profit. It has an agenda."

"I write what I have to write. And if it's not accepted, then it's not accepted."

"I'm not a teacher. I'm a writer."