Homegoing spans about 250 years of Ghanaian and American history. Some of this history I knew a bit about, but the novel did require an extensive amount of research, which was by far the most difficult part in the process of writing.

Musicals are plays, but the last collaborator is your audience, so you've got to wait 'til the last collaborator comes in before you can complete the collaboration.

I knew what I had done wrong. I had followed the experts and put the money I had in television. The second time around I spent almost no money on television. The only money I spent on television, I spent on Ted Turner's station, late at night on something called Creature Feature and wrestling. Because those were things that I knew people looked at. But we spent most of our money organizing people door-to-door.

I've had some downturns in my career and various problems, but in fact all those kind of problems turned into something even better. It's kind of amazing, various times in my career.

I always thought superintelligence was a long way off and we could worry about it later, and the problem for now is just to make these more intelligent. I wish I'd thought sooner about what was going to happen.