I remember telling my creative writing teacher that you never want to have a journal because if you lose it then someone's going to know all your secrets. And then she stopped using a journal but I always write everything down... Anytime I travel I try and fill up notepads.

I'm a freak everything has to be totally flat when I play. Ed Will my jazz teacher set up everything completely flat and then you'd tilt your snare drum away from you so I do that too. So my snare tilts away from me.

There's always someone asking you to underline one piece of yourself - whether it's Black woman mother dyke teacher etc. - because that's the piece that they need to key in to. They want to dismiss everything else.

Study how water flows in a valley stream smoothly and freely between the rocks. Also learn from holy books and wise people. Everything - even mountains rivers plants and trees - should be your teacher.

I think that everything you do helps you to write if you're a writer. Adversity and success both contribute largely to making you what you are. If you don't experience either one of those you're being deprived of something.

Well I believe that the depth of your struggle can determine the height of your success. I was inspired to come out of everything I've been through and end up in a place where I never thought that I would be.

If there is any secret to my success I think it's that my characters are very real to me. I feel everything they feel and therefore I think my readers care about them.

When everything happens to you when you're so young you're very lucky but by the same token you're never going to have that same feeling again. The first time anything happens to you - your first love your first success - the second one is never the same.

The secret to success is to own nothing but control everything.

The manic pursuit of success cost me everything I could love: my wife my three children some friends I would have liked to grow old with.