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This is the time for every artist in every genre to do what he or she does loudly and consistently. It doesn't matter to me what your position is. You...more

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There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizat...more

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I didn't plan on either children or writing. Once I realized that writing satisfied me in some enormous way, I had to make adjustments. The writing wa...more

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What I think the political correctness debate is really about is the power to be able to define. The definers want the power to name. And the defined ...more

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Black people have always been used as a buffer in this country between powers to prevent class war.

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I get angry about things, then go on and work.

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When I write, I don't translate for white readers.... Dostoevski wrote for a Russian audience, but we're able to read him. If I'm specific, and I don'...more

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Everything I've ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it.

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I think women dwell quite a bit on the duress under which they work, on how hard it is just to do it at all. We are traditionally rather proud of ours...more

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Everybody gets everything handed to them. The rich inherit it. I don't mean just inheritance of money. I mean what people take for granted among the m...more

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I think some aspects of writing can be taught. Obviously, you can't teach vision or talent. But you can help with comfort.

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Black people are victims of an enormous amount of violence. None of those things can take place without the complicity of the people who run the schoo...more

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The Nobel Prize is the best thing that can happen to a writer in terms of how it affects your contracts, the publishers, and the seriousness with whic...more

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All of that art-for-art’s-sake stuff is BS,” she declares. “What are these people talking about? Are you really telling me that Shakespeare and Aeschy...more

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Writing is really a way of thinking--not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet.