People process pain differently. My family, we were pretty humorous about things that went on.

I read more history books than anything else.

I'm not one of those who can listen to music and write. I need the door closed. Windows shut. Facing the wall. No birds tweeting, views of nature, and so forth.

You can't write just anything. Your story needs structure.

When you tell them you're a writer, they say, 'What have you written?' And then you've got to tell them what you've done. I don't ask a plumber what he does. Then I have to explain what I've done, and I haven't really, you know. I've just told some stories.

I can't be a creative person if I'm a celebrity.

The hard part about writing about a guy like John Brown is that he was so serious, and his cause was so serious, that most of what's been written about him is really serious and, in my opinion, a little bit boring.

James Brown's music still sounds as fresh and as good and as new as it did when he first created it.

Writing teaches writing.

I type most of my books for the first chapter or two - I use a manual typewriter for the first 50 pages or so - and then I move to the computer. It helps me keep the work lean so I don't end up spending 10 pages describing a leaf.

If you can whistle the melody, then the song will stick. But if you need a bunch of machines to make it sound good, you're probably not writing anything that's going to last a long time.

My main problem with fiction is that once my characters get moving, you just have to follow them along and get out of the way of the story, but sometimes they pull me in too many directions, and I need to focus.

I split my time between a small town in New Jersey and New York City.

Most of my work is done when everyone else is asleep.

I go through periods listening to specific types of music. Because I'm a musician, listening to music is... it's a bit like work for me. A little bit.

I grew up in a house with a lot of kids, brothers and sisters. So I don't mind a lot of talking, yelling, playing. I can tune most of that out.

Historical novels are hard to do for the general public for commercial writers like myself.

You can't live for literature. You can't live for the job.

I don't live for my work. My life is my life. That's more important, and I think that helps my work.

All of us want to be Superman when we grow up, fighting for truth and justice. That's part of what drives me as a writer.

I'm trying to get Americans to see that we're all pretty much the same. I believe it; I was taught God doesn't have a color. I want to better the planet a little bit.

Spike Lee listens a lot. He's one of the quietest creative people I've ever met.

Everybody knew James Brown. Every musician dreamed of being in his band.

As far as making a living, if plumbing earned more, I'd probably do it. At least you can leave the job at home once the tools are put away. A writer works in his mind 24/7.

We're learning a tremendous amount of propaganda from television and the Internet.

The starting point of all great jazz has got to be format, a language that you can work within that, in some ways, is much tighter than the blues or even gospel. It's all working towards the same destination - the difference being that Miles Davis flew there, and I'm still taking the subway.

I like stories where normal people are in abnormal situations, and that's what appeals to me about history.

I write stories that are already in the air, and I think it's important to have the correct listening device to tune in to that frequency.

I have cousins in North Carolina who talk in that old Southern style of 'yakking,' if you will. All the black men in my life when I was a boy talked that way, and I love that kind of talk.

John Brown was the abolitionist to end all abolitionists. People thought he was crazy. He was like John Coltrane playing free jazz, exhausting all possibilities in his approach to harmony and improvisation.

Being a best-selling author doesn't make you a millionaire. It's not like Stephen King.

I hate to sound blase about it, but literary status is not important to me. Being happy is important to me.

Some writers like to go around talking about what they do all the time. I don't.

Fiction makes your dreams come true, and, as a writer, fiction allows you to delve into the area of miracles.

A daily dose of Nietzsche goes a long way.

When the great jazz and blues clubs closed - joints where the cash register rang loudly and there wasn't ESPN on TV over the bandstand, and people smoked cigarettes and drank whiskey and hollered 'Play on!' - When those places closed, I was pretty much done.

I used to walk through the Old Times Square fearing for my life. Now I wouldn't be caught dead there.

I think heroes who are not flawed are not believable.

The whole notion of owning a person is so ludicrous, there's plenty of room to make fun.

I thank God I was a reporter before I became a writer.

I wasn't a guy built to write about entertainment.

When I was younger, I was ambitious. Now I'm not ambitious anymore. I just want to be happy. Does that make sense?

My goal is to be able to fill out one of those forms that asks 'Who are you?' and be able to just put 'Human being,' you know?

Essentially, I'm a storyteller, and I make my living by telling stories, be they music or nonfiction or fiction.

It would be nice if we redefined what we meant by 'war story.' If you're making $15,000 a year living in a certain area of Portland, trying to make it with three kids and no husband, that's a kind of war.

The James Brown story is not about James Brown. It's about who's getting paid, whose interest is involved, who can squeeze the estate and black history for more.

Historians will tell you that they deal with fact and empirical evidence. But that doesn't really help me understand a person.

When we're talking about slavery... we're really talking about the web of relationships that exists between whites and blacks from 1619 to 1865 to now.

A typewriter forces you to keep going, to march forward.

I'm not one of those deeper, ethereal writers. I'm just trying to get it done.