Secret families are really the bedrock issue of Western literature.

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.

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.

A key barometer to help us weigh the rightness of our actions is self-respect.

Depression is not generalized pessimism, but pessimism specific to the effects of one's own skilled action.

This is it. This is how I always saw heaven, always by the sea, always by night, always in the dark.

A writer must be willing to leave oneself behind in order to explore new territories of the mind and unearth primordial truths that startle and frighten us.

One sage is worth more than a thousand warriors.

If life had a second edition, how I would correct the proofs.

Live your Art. Don't think about it.

My father felt that his world of ideas was too liberal for traditional rabbinical teachings, and he looked for a chance to find a way in life.

No one in history had ever done less and yet been so wrong.

I'm just going to try to do the best work at whatever I'm going to be, and I don't think I'm going to be an actress.