I Truly Believe That Writing Is A

If There Was No Risk, It Wouldn't Be Art. It Wouldn't Be Worth Making. There Is Risk Even In A Fairy Tale. Fiction Is Closest To Pure Narrative, And Pure Narrative Is Simply The Logic We Try To Impose On An Ever-changing Reality.

There Was A Positive Side To Not Trying At Something: You Could Always Pretend That Your Life Would Have Been Different If You Had.

Every Successful Artist Comes From A Family - Parents Or Siblings Or Both - Who, Although Equally Gifted, Chose Not To Pursue The Treacherous And Difficult Path Of The Artist.

Much Of The Image Of The Amazingness Of America Comes From The Movies Into Other Cultures. And It's Much The Same Thing When You Reverse It. Much Of Africa Is Presented Through Poverty, Through Drought And War. [but] You're Not Presenting People, You're Not Presenting Countries, You're Not Presenting Complexity, And So People Can't Care About An Amorphous Mass Called Africa.

The Internet Is Really Our Meeting Place. We Have This Amazing Listserv. Every Time I Log Onto It I Feel A Sense Of Pride, Because If You Log On And Say, "oh I Was Just In San Diego And I Was In A Park And I Saw A Lion," The Flurry Of Replies On Average Is Just Like--wow! All These Existential Questions About What It Means To Be An African, And Never Having Seen A Lion At Home, But Having Seen A Lion Here. Everything You Say Turns Into This Real Philosophical Debate--it's Incredible In So Many Ways. And It's An Invigorating Place To Be.