Stephen Carter

“When you shoot someone who is fleeing, it's not self-defense. It's an execution.”

“Teaching civility is an obligation of the family.”

“To be black and an intellectual in America is to live in a box. On the box is a label, not of my own choosing.”

“If you're fascinated by America, you'll be fascinated by family.”

“So much emotion goes into writing fiction.”

“More than 20 years on, sustained competition, informed customers and the rapid growth of new technology provide the necessary environment for substantial deregulation.”

“In real life there are indeed black people who have been in the middle class for generations, but in entertainment it's as if they don't exist.”

“I think of my novels as entertainments.”

“I think that black fiction authors have to work very hard to avoid being typed as seeking only a black audience.”

“I find it hard to think of myself as selling books. I don't even have a Web site. I want to sit and write, not sell.”

“There are no black conservatives. Oh, there are neoconservatives with black skin, but they lack any claim to blackness other than the biological. They have forgotten their roots.”

“Even in 2012, if there's a black character in the movies or on television that's a professional, if we even hear about their backgrounds they're always 'up from the streets.'”