JAMES MCBRIDE

As a journalist, the details always tell the story.

The black church will accept anybody.

The question of religion in black America is something filmmakers don't want to touch.

Writing for me is cutting out the fat and getting to the meaning.

Be kind to the living.

Until you expose the cancer, you can't fix it.

If you have the material it will form itself as a kind of connective tissue.

People don't realize you're blowing over changes, time changes, harmony, different keys. I mark a point in my solo where it's got to peak at point D I go to A, B, C D then I'm home.

I wish all critics, no matter their color, were more sophisticated when it comes to the moral questions a film like 'St. Anna' is trying to raise.

I'm not interested in food. It's just fuel.

Newt Gingrich wrote a novel, and he's a short story. Bill Clinton wrote a biography, and he's a novel.

I put headlights in Ford vans. I still drive a Ford.

My family is my career.

It's the same old story. Nothing in this world happens unless white folks says it happens. And therein lies the problem of being a professional black storyteller - writer, musician, filmmaker.

I'd like to do something involving jazz. But books are how I earn my living, and I'd like to stay with the horse I rode in on.

I'm proud of 'Miracle at St. Anna' and I loved it; there's no question in my mind it's as good as any movie that came out in 2007.

When you're interviewing someone, even your mother - you have to sort of deal with you have to get some objective space from yourself and the person but you also have to find what's the best way to get the information from that person.

First person narrative is a very effective tool but you have to know as a writer how to make it work.

I don't want to read a book that's depressing.

I'm not one of those who can listen to music and write. I need the door closed. Windows shut. Facing the wall. No birds tweeting, views of nature, and so forth.

I grew up in a house with a lot of kids, brothers and sisters. So I don't mind a lot of talking, yelling, playing. I can tune most of that out.

You make your own luck by working hard, you know?

I don't live for my work. My life is my life. That's more important, and I think that helps my work.

When I was coming up, a lot of serious jazz players couldn't stand funk.

I thank God I was a reporter before I became a writer.