The novel and the film of 'The Color Purple' are both works of the imagination that make claim to historical truth.

Steven Spielberg's 'The Color Purple' might as well have been about a bunch of dancing eggplants for all it has to say about black history.

When I was in high school, I looked for the black presence in a British historical tradition - before too much slavery and empire - that would not cost me my self-respect.

New York's various undergrounds can make for a disciplined apprenticeship, and Gaga takes pride in her earliest fan base of art, fashion and music students.

The contract between the author and the reader is a game. And the game . . . is one of the greatest invetions of Western civilization: the game of telling stories, inventing characters, and creating the imaginary paradise of the individual, from whence no one can be expelled because, in a novel, no one owns the truth and everyone has the right to be heard and understood.

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.