“Being able to laugh got me through.”

In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.

Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly, but the love of a free man is never safe.

I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it.

Sometimes what I write on the page frightens me, so I feel free when I write, but I don’t feel safe.

Me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.

The peace I am thinking of is the dance of an open mind when it engages another equally open one.

There’s a difference between writing for a living and writing for life. If you write for a living, you make enormous compromises. If you write for life, you’ll work hard; you’ll do what’s honest, not what pays.

Books are a form of political action. Books are knowledge. Books are reflection. Books change your mind.

For me the history of the place of black people in this country is so varied, complex and beautiful. And impactful.

For me the history of the place of black people in this country is so varied, complex and beautiful. And impactful.

Love is or it ain’t. Thin love ain’t love at all.

Don’t beg anybody for anything, especially love.

And I am all the things I have ever loved: scuppernong wine, cool baptisms in silent water, dream books and number playing.

I want to discourage you from choosing anything or making any decision simply because it is safe. Things of value seldom are.

It is sheer good fortune to miss somebody long before they leave you.

All paradises, all utopias are designed by who is not there, by the people who are not allowed in.