I probably spend 90% of my time revising what I've written.

I don't teach literature from my perspective as 'Joyce Carol Oates.' I try to teach fiction from the perspective of each writer. If I'm teaching a story by Hemingway, my endeavor is to present the story that Hemingway wrote in its fullest realization.

One writes to memorialize, and to bring to life again that which has been lost.

A lot of widows feel that they have betrayed their spouse by continuing to live. It's deranged thinking. I know that, but that doesn't stop you feeling it.

I've always been interested in writing about people, including young children who are not able to speak for themselves. As in my novel 'Black Water,' I provide a voice for someone who has died and can't speak for herself.

I haven't any formal schedule, but I love to write in the morning, before breakfast. Sometimes the writing goes so smoothly that I don't take a break for many hours - and consequently have breakfast at two or three in the afternoon on good days.

Primarily, 'Black Girl/White Girl' is the story of two very different, yet somehow 'fated' girls; for Genna, her 'friendship' with Minette is the most haunting of her life, though it is one-sided and ends in tragedy.

I am concerned with only one thing, the moral and social conditions of my generation.

The - the sort of thing that I want to do is to strike a resonant chord of universality in other people, which is best done by fiction.

'The Accursed' is very much a novel about social injustice as the consequence of the terrible, tragic division of classes - the exploitation not only of poor and immigrant workers but of their young children in factories and mills - and as the consequence of race hatred in the aftermath of the Civil War and the freeing of the slaves.

A good, sympathetic review is always a wonderful surprise.

Our house is made of glass... and our lives are made of glass; and there is nothing we can do to protect ourselves.

The most common misperception about me is that I write fast. I just write often. Every hour that I can.

The historical Woodrow Wilson suffered from numerous complaints which we might today label as psychosomatic. Yet, Wilson did have a stroke as a relatively young man of 39 and seemed always to be ill. He was 'high-strung' - intensely neurotic - yet a charismatic personality nonetheless.

Night comes to the desert all at once, as if someone turned off the light.

When I complete a novel I set it aside, and begin work on short stories, and eventually another long work. When I complete that novel I return to the earlier novel and rewrite much of it. In the meantime the second novel lies in a desk drawer.

The cleaning is something I use as a reward if I get some work done. I go into a very happy state of mind when I'm vacuuming.

I was writing novels in high school and apprenticed myself in a way both to Faulkner and to Hemingway.

I have read on a Kindle. But the Kindle we had only worked for about eight months then it stopped working. You don't have to get books repaired.

No, the thing is, we all love storytelling, and as a writer you get to tell stories all the time.

The books I read I do enjoy, very much; otherwise I wouldn't read them. Most of them are for review, for the New York Review of Books, and substantial.

After my parents passed away - in 2000 and 2003 - I felt I could take the time to think about the past and imagine what it would have been like to be my grandmother.

Yes, I've listened to just a few audiobooks - but hope to listen to more. I've wanted to investigate how my own books sound in this format and find the experience of listening, and not reading, quite fascinating.

If a book I've committed myself to review turns out to be 'disappointing' I make an effort to present it objectively to the reader, including a good number of excerpts from the text, so that the reader might form his or her own opinion independent of my own.

Before you can write a novel you have to have a number of ideas that come together. One idea is not enough.

Honorary degrees and lifetime achievement awards are very encouraging. I know that it might sound strange that a writer who has published many books still needs encouragement, but this is true.

Criticism is, for me, like essay writing, a wonderful way of relaxation; it doesn't require a heightened and mediated voice, like prose fiction, but rather a calm, rational, even conversational voice.

Except that awards are competitive, which is a negative thing, they are wonderful for singling out deserving individuals and bringing their work to the attention of many potential readers who might otherwise have been totally unaware of them.

To be Jewish is to be specifically identified with a history. And if you're not aware of that when you're a child, the whole tradition is lost.

I can't say I was a very successful sorority girl.

Like most people, I can be very easily hurt.

My grandmother could never have written a memoir, so 'The Gravedigger's Daughter' is a homage to her life, and to the lives of other young women of her generation, which are so rarely articulated.

Kendrick Lamar is 10-times the rapper I am, but I just feel I'm the best at getting my own point across.

I have no history with 4chan.

I don't think any other place puts out music with no promise of success and still works like Baltimore.

I'm not some patriot. I didn't have some yearning to defend my country or anything. I was poor.

Either people cling to the past and refuse to advance their ways, or they're always looking to future and not appreciating what's in front of them right now.

The intention behind 'Prone!' was to make a punk song with no instruments.

I don't want anyone to expect anything from me. I just want them to know that I'm gonna put 1,037% into whatever I do. If I tell you I'm gonna release a folk/reggae/country album, just know at bare minimum there's gonna be 1,010% put into it.

The first thing I ever put on the Internet was actually a beat tape, but the first thing I ever put on where I was rapping was called 'Generation Y,' and it was hella political.

I don't have a manager who's secretly on Interscope. I'm the complete opposite of an industry plant.

In my opinion, the most dangerous thing an artist can do in this day and age is not embrace the present.

I saw Fear perform live at a young age, so I guess you could say I draw from that same energy.

My dad used to play old dancehall records - Cutty Ranks, Ranking Dread, Michael Prophet, these type of dudes.

If Kanye was not in the equation, I literally wouldn't even be here. His music pushed hip-hop - the man is a master at taking a complex idea and presenting it in a way that is accessible for everyone.

I want to work with Danny Brown but also Cannibal Corpse and Maroon 5.

I've been watching anime for a minute, so I know like real weird deep anime that people probably don't care about.

So much of rap sounds the same, and that's okay, but that means some people want something that can be the complete opposite too.

I don't rely on the strength of my image.

Bjork for sure. Definitely, I would like to do like something with Tommy Genesis, too. There's a lot of people actually.