I think only now am I at the age where I've forgiven the past enough to say, 'You know what? Slavery was there. Let's talk about it in ways that will help us face tomorrow.

I understand it's great to read a great book, but it's better to live your life. It just helps me. It's uncomfortable at times, but you have to live outside the circle.

We would not have been a successful family without my father and stepfather, who were working-class men with better dreams for their children. We just wore them out.

My father died in 1957, just before I was born. My mother went to her Jewish aunt, who slammed the door in her face.

When my mother left home, her family sat shivah for her, more because my father was not Jewish than because he was black.

I don't live for my work. My life is my life. That's more important, and I think that helps my work.

You can't live for literature. You can't live for the job.

If I grew up in a truly color-blind society, I would not be a black American.

Caring is beyond race. Either people care about you, or they don't.

Historical novels are hard to do for the general public for commercial writers like myself.