I take mentoring very seriously and as a result I hardly get any work done during the school year.

If there was ever a time to boil up some grits it is now.

I take mentoring very seriously and I am on the board of an organization called Girls Write Now, where we match teen girls and writing mentors because it changes their lives.

Remember that the writing itself is good for you. If your story is so close to home that you are afraid to write it, it probably means you need to write it.

When you write a novel, you make other people see your imaginary friends.

This is what I have come to know: Our past is never passed and there is no such thing as moving on. But there is this telling and there is such a thing as passing through.

When it comes to memoir, we want to catch the author in a lie. When we read fiction, we want to catch the author telling the truth.

Abandonment doesn't have the sharp but dissipating sting of a slap. It's like a punch to the gut, bruising your skin and driving the precious air from your body.

My first novel, Leaving Atlanta, took at look at my hometown in the late 1970s, when the city was terrorized by a serial murderer that left at least 29 African-American children dead.

It's funny how three or four notes of anger can be struck at once, creating the perfect chord of fury.

When I am writing a story it feels as real as the life I am experiencing off the page. It's an emotional illusion, I guess.

His harmonic words could weave the fabric of time or spin matter from nothingness if the mood suited him.

I love to write and do photography, as a cathartic experience.

I'd put Hank Williams picture on one hundred dollar bills.

I would advise you to keep your overhead down; avoid a major drug habit; play everyday, and take it front of other people. They need to hear it, and you need them to hear it.

I want people to have a new way of looking at the world when they leave the theater.

The greatest possesion of man is character

You wouldn't be caught wearing cheap perfume, would you? Then why do you want to wear cheap perfume in your conduct?

To be feared is much safer then to be loved.

I'm a big pasta guy, but I've cut it out to stay fast and lean.