The United States has written the white history of the United States. It now needs to write the black, Latino, Indian, Asian and Caribbean history of the United States.

Don't classify me, read me. I'm a writer, not a genre.

Recognize yourself in he and she who are not like you and me.

Writing is a struggle against silence.

Art gives life to what history killed. Art gives voice to what history denied, silenced, or persecuted. Art brings truth to the lies of history.

I need, therefore I imagine.

One wants to tell a story, like Scheherezade, in order not to die. It's one of the oldest urges in mankind. It's a way of stalling death.

What's happened at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq is one of the grossest violations of human rights under the Geneva Conventions that we have record of. It is simply monstrous.

Literature overtakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expands experience and opens new opportunities to readers.

You start by writing to live. You end by writing so as not to die.

Culture consists of connections, not of separations: to specialize is to isolate.

Success requires first expending ten units of effort to produce one unit of results. Your momentum will then produce ten units of results with each unit of effort.

A man is a fool not to put everything he has, at any given moment, into what he is creating.

I hope he (Babe Ruth) lives to hit one-hundred homers in a season. I wish him all the luck in the world. He has everybody else, including myself, hopelessly outclassed.

The Doctrine of Evolution states the fact that the present is the child of the past and the parent of the future.

There isn't a right way to become educated; there are as many ways as there are fingerprints.

Avoid spending too much on one thing.

Sometimes I would almost rather have people take years of my life than take away a moment.

Keep your eyes on the finish line and not on the turmoil around you.

Marriage is about raising children. That's the purpose of the institution.