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.

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.

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

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.

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.

Aim for the stars. You will sooner reach the moon.

Saying of the ProphetEnvyEnvy devours good deeds, as a fire devours fuel.

Evil devastates any possibility of an intellectual response

Christ did not die by accident. He died voluntarily in our place.

Happiness comes in many forms. Whether through a passion for something or someone, it makes no difference. The results are the same: you live.

As Plotinus tells us, we elected the body, the parents, the place, and the circumstances that suited the soul and that, as the myth says, belongs to its necessity.

Be true to yourself- and keep things simple. People complicate things

Whenever I write, I'm always thinking of the reader.

It looks like Armani and Cartier went to war.

America is interested in change and reform in the Middle East but in a stable way.