I want my great-granddaughter to have a fairly good understanding of the world in which I lived for 81 years and also the world before I came into it - all the way back a hundred thousand years, to the beginning of our species.

The impact of the black audience is expressing itself. They look to films to be more expressive of their needs, their lives. Hollywood has gotten that message - finally.

If you apply reason and logic to this career of mine, you're not going to get very far. You simply won't.

A good deed here, a good deed there, a good thought here, a good comment there, all added up to my career in one way or another.

Leading your family is a lot tougher than basketball.

I tend to write during the day so I can see my children at night. But if my kids aren't with me and I have a chunk of time when I'm a single woman living in my house for a miraculous week, I will get to write at different hours.

On a day-to-day level, I love watching my kids accomplish the little things that seem trivial but are really milestones: seeing my son hit a baseball or watching my daughter draw something that actually looks like what she says she's drawing. Or hearing them say 'I love you.'

I grew up near Strasbourg in Alsace, where my family were coal merchants.