Rest Easy And Go With The Faith

My Father Always Taught By Telling Stories About His Experiences. His Lessons Were About Morality And Art And What Insects And Birds And Human Beings Had In Common. He Told Me What It Meant To Be A Man And To Be A Black Man. He Taught Me About Love And Responsibility, About Beauty, And How To Make Gumbo.

One Wouldn't Want To Say That What Makes A Good Writer Is The Number Of Books That The Writer Wrote Because You Could Write A Whole Number Of Bad Books. Books That Don't Work, Mediocre Books, Or There's A Whole Bunch Of People In The Pulp Tradition Who Have Done That. They Just Wrote... And Actually They Didn't Write A Whole Bunch Of Books, They Just Wrote One Book Many Times.

I Have Never Thought That I Have Sacrificed Anything Being A Writer. That Might Not Be True, Maybe I Have Sacrificed Something. Maybe I've Given Something Up, But I Can't Think Of It.

When You Talk About Painters And You Talk About Painters Painting Masterpieces, There Is No Painter Who Painted Only One Painting And That Was A Masterpiece. You Have To Do A Whole Bunch Of Paintings To Get To The Place Of Mastering Your Craft.

Writing Is Almost A Place Of Dreams For Me, And I Don't Have To Give Up Anything To Do It.