No one says a novel has to be one thing. It can be anything it wants to be, a vaudeville show, the six o’clock news, the mumblings of wild men saddled by demons.

Writing poetry is the hard manual labor of the imagination.

I'm not against White writers writing about Blacks as long as they are as objective as say James McPherson writing about an Irish American janitor in his brilliant short story "Gold Coast."

Writing has made me a better man. It has put me in contact with those fleeting moments which prove the existence.

I have T.V. on all the time when I'm writing. I have music on. I'm engaged with the world.