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I think that black fiction authors have to work very hard to avoid being typed as seeking only a black audience.

At one time if you were a black writer you had to be one of the best writers in the world to be published. You had to be great. Now you can be good. Mediocre. And that's good.

They say that every Jewish person is supposed to love one black person in his life. I'm glad Lorne Michaels chose me.

My favorite writers are all Jews - David, Solomon, Matthew, Mark - well, you get the picture.

It infuriates me that the work of white American writers can be universal and lay claim to classic texts, while black and female authors are ghetto-ized as 'other.'

You can't have too many books featuring people of color, just like you can't have too many books featuring white people.

I have so many favorite authors; I can't name just one.

The Jewish background is not that far from the black groove. Blacks are downtrodden, Jews are downtrodden, therefore they have something in common in that affliction. Being downtrodden often makes one more empathetic and sympathetic.

Nobody in France would ever say 'He's a Jewish novelist' or 'She's a black novelist,' even though people do write about those subjects. It would look absurd to a French person to go into a bookstore and see a 'Gay Studies' section.

I always crave to see more stories about and by people of color, particularly new work by young black writers.