Nobody can do for little children what grandparents do. Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children.

The New York Times reported that six million copies of the book had been sold by 1977. Two years later he returned to his father and stepmother to inform them of his withdrawal from college.

He is best known as the author of Roots: The Saga of an American Family and the co-author of The Autobiography of Malcolm X.