"I hate politics. I like to write about it, but to get involved in it, to try and make a lot of ignorant people do what you want them to do, waste of time. Go and write a book. It's more important and it'll last longer."

"I have been blessed in many ways, and one of those is to have been born in Africa, for me a great treasure house of stories. I have been researching it since my infancy reading about it, talking to men and women who have spent their lives in this land, living it as I have and loving it as I do. I write almost entirely from my own experience."

"I'm not a good father and they're not children any more the eldest is in his fifties. My relationship with their mothers broke down and, because of what the law was, they went with their mothers and were imbued with their mothers' morality in life and they were not my people any more."

"The first novel I wrote was a monster - clocking in at 180,000 words - but it died a death, a death it deserved. It was called 'The Gods First Make Mad.' It was a good title, but it was the only good thing about the book. I didn't let that put me off."

"Growing up in Nashville, especially in a music business family, means growing up with knowledge that seems like common sense until later in life when you realize people spend thousands of dollars a semester trying to learn or pretending to learn while looking for some intern job on music row."

"The whole thing means such a great deal for me, and hopefully one day it will be there. But my friends and my family mean a little more. I would rather be helping them, even if it hurts that."

"And whereas women had to fight to find their way into the workforce, men are now fighting to reclaim their place in the family structure."

"My parents had a wonderful marriage, but it was a very dependent relationship. My mother was entirely dependent on my father because that's how it was in those days."