“As an African American, I don’t take myself too seriously that I can’t poke fun at stereotypes that used to offend me. Despite the title of my book, I think many will be surprised if they actually read it to see what it’s really about, and come away having been entertained. If that happens for only a few people, I will be proud to have put myself out there.My challenge to all the nay-sayers is: HOW DARE YOU READ THIS!”

“Why d’you read then?” “Partly for pleasure, and because it’s a habit and I’m just as uncomfortable if I don’t read as if I don’t smoke, and partly to know myself. When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me; I’ve got out of the book all that’s any use to me, and I can’t get anything more if I read it a dozen times. You see, it seems to me, one’s like a closed bud, and most of what one reads and does has no effect at all; but there are certain things that have a peculiar significance for one, and they open a petal; and the petals open one by one and at last the flower is there.”

“It has made me better loving you... it has made me wiser, and easier, and brighter. I used to want a great many things before, and to be angry that I did not have them. Theoretically, I was satisfied. I flattered myself that I had limited my wants. But I was subject to irritation; I used to have morbid sterile hateful fits of hunger, of desire. Now I really am satisfied, because I can’t think of anything better. It’s just as when one has been trying to spell out a book in the twilight, and suddenly the lamp comes in. I had been putting out my eyes over the book of life, and finding nothing to reward me for my pains; but now that I can read it properly I see that it’s a delightful story.”

“If I read a book that impresses me, I have to take myself firmly in hand before I mix with other people; otherwise they would think my mind rather queer.”

“I don’t think of myself as being a celebrity, it’s too mortifying. I have a hard time watching myself on screen and it’s getting worse. I can’t tell whether my work is good or not.”

“I can’t talk about my books. I have written them and tried to forget them. I have written once, and readers have read me many times, no? I try to think of what I wrote, it’s very unhealthy to think about the past, the case of elegies is very sad, as much as the case of complaints.”