I loved Charlotte Bronte when I was little, and I wanted to be Charlotte Bronte the way people want to be a princess.

People only say I'm angry because I'm black and I'm a woman. But all sorts of people write with strong feeling, the way I do.

I used to want to be a backup singer. Not a lead singer, because I really can't sing.

I come from a little island with the Caribbean Sea on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. I come from, really, nowhere, and for me, the fiction and the nonfiction, creative or otherwise, all come from the same place.

Children like their mothers especially to be standing still and watching them, even if they are sleeping. At least that's how I felt. There's nothing wrong with the self-interest of children; it's just the way they are.

I have no credentials. I have no money. I literally come from a poor place. I was a servant. I dropped out of college. The next thing you know I'm writing for the 'New Yorker,' I have this sort of life, and it must seem annoying to people.