"I'm always surprised by what I write. I don't know what I'm going to say until I say it."

"You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down."

"I'm not interested in being a black writer. I'm interested in being a writer who happens to be black."

"I'm not interested in writing about people who are just like me."

"My work is to make sure that the people I'm writing about are human, and that they are complex, and that they are not stereotypes."