The Black Church Will Accept Anybody.

My Whole Family Was - We Grew Up In New York, But All My Relatives And All My Father And Stepfather's Family, They Were All From The South. So I Like That Old Black Voice, And I Love The Sort Of Old Black Man With A Corncob Pipe, Sitting There Telling A Whopper.

I Grew Up In The Church, And So I Feel That God Gave Me Certain Things To Do, And I'm Lucky Enough To Kind Of Have Figured Those Things Out. I Just Don't Want To Die Not Having Tried To Help Somebody Else With What I Know.

If You're A Creative Person, You'd Better Not Read What People Write About You, Because If It's Good It'll Blow Your Head Up And It'll Force You Not To Take The Subway And You'll Start Taking Cabs, And You'd Better Stay Around People, And If It's Bad, It Just Hurts Your Feelings So Much It Discourages You.

First Person Narrative Is A Very Effective Tool But You Have To Know As A Writer How To Make It Work.

There Are Some Really Great Books That Have Been Written About Slavery, But I Don't Think That The Discourse About It In Society Has Been Very Accurate Or Healthy. I Don't Think We've Come Up With Ways To Tell It That Don't Insult People Or Hit Them In The Wrong Way. Part Of The Problem Is That Most People Don't Really Understand What Slavery Was Anyway. Most White People Didn't Own Slaves. Slavery Was A Way Of Life, Just Like Driving Cars Is A Way Of Life Now. It Doesn't Mean That It Was Right.