There's a stereotype that to be a strong black woman is to be strong about being black.

One thing I am learning is to slow down. Multitasking is great, but I when try to do everything at warp speed I just end up with typos and stress.

I try to find the beauty in things. On dark days, I sit in my armchair looking at clouds and I am awed at how rain is made.

I think that if you just write your characters you end up with something that people can access.

Half of what's wrong with people today is that they ain't got no place to go that makes them peaceful.

One of the things that writers worry about is finding a voice. I don't think it's a thing that you find so much as it is something that comes to you, or that presents itself.

Voice isn't fixed or unmalleable, it adapts to the characters you are creating and the story being told. I suppose in some way that's true in life - a little flexibility goes a long way.

Even if you don't feel like sitting down to write or working on that big proposal, or whatever it is, just show up anyhow and the rest will follow.

I've been writing all my life. Even though I didn't have sort of careerist aspirations as a writer, it was very much my identity.

Fiction writing is an act of imagination, lived experience is secondary in many ways, writing a novel really is all about inventing worlds and people.

All of us, writers and non-writers alike, have incredible well-springs of personal experience and history. And we also have imagination - which I think is a kind of human miracle.

I had two or three faced people, I don't like the feature that they are have a lot of faces, what's bad?You never know which face they are using!

A guest sees more in an hour than the host in a year.

I know the nature of women When you want to they don't want to And when you don't want to they desire exceedingly.

The funny thing is, I'm so used to not caring what anyone says, good or bad, that unfortunately even when people say good things... I wish it made me feel good, but it doesn't.

It is unfortunate, considering that enthusiasm moves the world, that so few enthusiasts can be trusted to speak the truth.

Why should I put a bunch of Cadillacs on the ice, when I can sell out with a bunch of volkswagens

We must certainly acknowledge that solitude is a fine thing; but it is a pleasure to have some one who can answer, and to whom we can say, from time to time, that solitude is a fine thing.

I feel like I have to do some promotion to let the people know that the records are out there; but I kind of like the idea that it's my work that does the talking rather than me.

Being in the moment is the best thing I can do.

I'm usually writing or producing for other people. I'm like Burger King most of the time; I let people have it their way like "You want it like this? I'll give it to you like this."