Well, writing was what I wanted to do, it was always what I wanted to do. I had novels to write so I wrote them.

The thing about science fiction is that it's totally wide open. But it's wide open in a conditional way.

I talked to members of my family, and did some personal research that didn't really have anything to do with the time and place I was writing about, but that gave me a feeling of the experience of being black in a time and place where it was very difficult to be black.

I would never have been a good scientist - my attention span was too short for that.

I was raised Baptist, and I like the fact that I got my conscience installed early.

No... a novel is a long business. I'm a slow writer, even when I'm doing very well I write slowly.

Once you grow past Mommy and Daddy coming running when you're hurt, you're really on your own. You're alone, and there's no one to help you.

Science fiction let me do both. It let me look into science and stick my nose in everywhere.

And I have this little litany of things they can do. And the first one, of course, is to write - every day, no excuses. It's so easy to make excuses. Even professional writers have days when they'd rather clean the toilet than do the writing.

Writing is one of the few professions in which you can psychoanalyse yourself, get rid of hostilities and frustrations in public, and get paid for it.