What interests me is what you might call vernacular writing, writing that connects you to a place.

The food in such places is so tasteless because the members associate spices and garlic with just the sort of people they're trying to keep out.

I don't mind being interviewed on television or radio.

Being on a book tour is a lot easier than reporting.

My mother was the strength. She was the anchor. She was a preacher and a teacher.

Education must be the only sector that hasn't already been completely revolutionized by technology.

My students know I have a life, they know I've written about my life. They know some detail, probably more than they know about their physics teacher, but I would've told them anyway!

Women ought to feel a peculiar sympathy in the colored man's wrong, for, like him, she has been accused of mental inferiority, and denied the privileges of a liberal education.