I'm a fast writer.

Can't nothing make your life work if you ain't the architect.

I'm more interested in interpersonal relationships - between lovers families, siblings. That's why I write about how we treat each other.

There is a price for popularity. Critics look for your weaknesses, your flaws, anything that makes the work seem like a fluke and not seem worthy of all the attention it's getting.

It takes me forever to say my prayers these days, but I don't care, because this time around, I want to make sure God doesn't have to do any guesswork.

My stories are character driven.

Few writers are willing to admit writing is autobiographical.

I'm a fast writer.

As far as young kids go, my primary interest is to get parents to read to their kids. That's about the most you can do, I think.

Every human being I know craves love and affection.

I can't stand that - those women in 'Waiting to Exhale' now. I can't stand them. But that's because I'm 53 and not 33. But what they were experiencing at 33, I identified with it.

I don't let negative criticism, for the most part, bother me.

I don't live my life as a writer. I'm a mother, an African-American woman, and I do everything that everybody else does - cook and a little bit of cleaning.

I just believe that young people need to be able to learn how to write in their own voice. Just like a musician, you pride yourself on having your own distinct sound.

I like doing the readings and the autographing, but the interviewing gets a little tedious because you get asked the same questions every day and sometimes three or four times a day.

I try to create characters that I am fascinated by on some level or intrigued by or can't stand.

I would like to think that as a result of not just my own experiences, but at least being empathetic and compassionate about other people's experiences and plights and tragedies, that I am affected by it and learn from it.

I'm not an angry woman. I'm not bitter.

Let me put it this way: when I read, I learned the world was not as small as my house. And that everybody in my home town was not representative of the way people in the world were raised. And that was what saved me.

People need to be re - sometimes we need to reinvent ourselves and then get reacquainted with our better selves.

What's universal is the texture of our relationships. It's evolving. Times are changing with the women's movement. Men's roles are being redefined and, in some ways, they're confused.

Write from your heart, and God will take care of the rest.

You know, one of my fears about living alone so long is that you get used to doing everything your own way.

If you jump to conclusions you make terrible landings.

My mama taught me that anything worth doing in life should be a little scary.

Don't sabotage your own greatness by succumbing to failure!

Arnold Bennett was a writer I admired. He was actually taking notes at his father's deathbed.

The good parts of a book may be only something a writer is lucky enough to overhear or it may be the wreck of his whole damn life and one is as good as the other.

For a country to have a great writer is like having another government. That's why no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones.

I'm a writer who likes to be influenced.

In relation to a writer, most readers believe in the Double Standard: they may be unfaithful to him as often as they like, but he must never, never be unfaithful to them.

A true critic ought to dwell upon excellencies rather than imperfections, to discover the concealed beauties of a writer, and communicate to the world such things as are worth their observation.

A writer may tell me that he thinks man will ultimately become an ostrich. I cannot properly contradict him.

The most important training, though, is to experience life as a writer, questioning everything, inventing multiple explanations for everything. If you do that, all the other things will come; if you don't, there's no hope for you.

It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.

Every sentence has a truth waiting at the end of it and the writer learns how to know it when he finally gets there.

It's essential not to have an ideology, not to be a member of a political party. While the writer can have certain political views, he has to be careful not to have his hands tied.

I was never really a writer, I was always more of a performer.

Without books I would not have become a vivacious reader, and if you are not a reader you are not a writer.

Well see, I'm a good enough writer that not everybody in my books talks exactly like I do.

So while it is true that I find really dark stuff funny sometimes, it's also true that as a writer of books I want to have the whole range of human emotions.

Here I am, where I ought to be. A writer must have a place where he or she feels this, a place to love and be irritated with.

Nowadays I'm not even sure if newspapers take into account whether a person is a good writer.

Remember Graham Green's dictum that childhood is the bank balance of the writer? I think that all writers feel alienated. Most of us go back to an alienated childhood in some way or another. I know that I do.

You know, Mamet is not a huge writer of female parts. Most of his movies don't even have women in them, so I'm lucky I'm in it at all.

A writer should get as much education as possible, but just going to school is not enough; if it were, all owners of doctorates would be inspired writers.

I am a writer. I could not afford to take 15 months off from my writing career to play detective.

In the theater, characters have to cut the umbilical cord from the writer and talk in their own voices.

I knew I wasn't a baseball writer. I was scared to death. I really was afraid to talk to players, and I didn't want to go into the press box because I thought I was faking it.