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I read everything I could find in English - Twain, Henry James, Hemingway, really everything. And then after a while I started writing shorter pieces in English, and one of them got published in a literary magazine and that's how it got started. After that, graduate school didn't seem very important.

I am always going to be in the hood in my heart, but what I did was added on the masters of arts, fine arts and the doctorate... if you want me to pull that out, I can get very distinguished... but I'm not going there... I don't have to put on airs; the knowledge comes out - just listen.

My only close-to-game-plan is to follow good writing. If the writing is in TV or if it's in theater or in film, that's it. It doesn't really matter what the medium is.

I like the fact that I'm involved in a career that gives me so many different mediums to perform in.

I like working in any medium. Who's making it? How much do I like the story? Does it contribute something?

I enjoy all aspects of it, I don't have a preference for any medium. I think each of them has its attractions and I would hope they each inform the other in some way.

'The Graduate' must be the best use of songs ever in a movie; it adds a layer to the movie you wouldn't ever get from a score.

A writer should get as much education as possible, but just going to school is not enough; if it were, all owners of doctorates would be inspired writers.

In many ways, a degree in the history of ideas is the ideal training for an aspiring writer.

I never got any training in how to write novels as an English major at Oberlin, but I got some great training for writing novels from anthropology and from Margaret Mead.