Fiction is lies; we're writing about people who never existed and events that never happened when we write fiction, whether its science fiction or fantasy or western mystery stories or so-called literary stories. All those things are essentially untrue. But it has to have a truth at the core of it.

I've always preferred writing about grey characters and human characters. Whether they are giants or elves or dwarves, or whatever they are, they're still human, and the human heart is still in conflict with the self.

As Faulkner says, all of us have the capacity in us for great good and for great evil, for love but also for hate. I wanted to write those kinds of complex character in a fantasy, and not just have all the good people get together to fight the bad guy.

Nobody is a villain in their own story. We're all the heroes of our own stories.

My favorite movies are from the '70s.

I'm intrigued by people who make their modest living doing good things for others. Teachers, nonprofit workers, librarians... those are the heroes in our society.

Every day I'm not working or writing is a wasted day to me.

There's a science to brain development. The brains of teenage boys are crowded with impulse and adrenaline. By the time they hit their 20s, their brains are dominated by conscience and reason.

My sons are black, and my daughter is Latina.

Where I live, there are a lot of businesses owned by Ethiopians and Eritreans. They're the new immigrants, the new Greeks - what my people did. The next generation of these people will probably be college graduates. That's how it works, right there in front of your eyes.

My take on gentrification and change is it's usually always a better thing, because when you see all these businesses open and flourishing, that means there are more jobs.

When I was a kid in the '60s, I went shopping in downtown Silver Spring. Hecht's, JCPenney, the little retailers - they sponsored all my sports teams.

I've seen firsthand how books can change people's lives. It happened to me.

Reading opens your mind and helps you understand and empathize with people who are unlike you and outside your breadth of experience.

People like to talk to me. I don't know why.

I love writing books, but it's a solitary experience. When I'm on a film set, I'm with a bunch of other artists working together to make one thing.

It's relatively easy to adopt kids if you're not trying to get kids that look exactly like you.

I do feel like that's what a writer does, is he goes into other people's heads.

I was a child in the '60s and a teenager in the '70s, which was the golden age of film as far as I'm concerned, between American film and the Italian reinvention of genre film.

Movies were the biggest influence on me when I was a kid.

I was a movie freak before I was a book lover.

Many fathers and sons never get to reconcile their differences or come to an understanding that fills the gap between love and expectations.

As far as I'm concerned, the voices of Washington, black Washington, it's poetry, man. There's beauty in it.

When I was a teenager, I thought if any of my friends or people at school see me reading a book, they're gonna think I'm weak. So I didn't even do it in private. Then I grew up, got into college, and the teachers turned me on to books, and I got hooked.