I don't believe that there is any particular book that influenced any 'career' I might have.

When you grow up with a mother who has to wash dishes and clean hotel rooms, you know the importance of having a job, and you can't be without a job for any length of time, or you will be without anything.

It just so happens that I was born and raised in Washington. Had I been born in Chicago or San Antonio, the streets and places would have figured into whatever I wrote. Just so happens that it's Washington, D.C.

In the summer of 1964, my sister and I went to South Ballston, Virginia, to stay with my aunt and her kids. They passed the civil rights bill that summer; my cousins were so happy because now they could swim in the pool.

My family's always going to be together.

I believe that the family unit has fundamentally been the most positive thing for society, and I don't believe that any minority has the right to create changes that impact on the majority.

As long as working women also have to do the work of child and family care at home, they will have two jobs instead of one. Perhaps more important, children will grow up thinking that only women can be loving and nurturing, and men cannot.

As an only child, particularly if you're a boy without a father, you have to work out for yourself who you're going to be. And I do think, over the years, I've developed a need for control.