“The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings.”

In our work and in our living, we must recognize that difference is a reason for celebration and growth, rather than a reason for destruction.

I find I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of myself and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of self.

We recognize that all knowledge is mediated through the body and that feeling is a profound source of information about our lives.

Unless one lives and loves in the trenches, it is difficult to remember that the war against dehumanization is ceaseless.

The Seventh Sense – Women who build nations learn to love men who build nations learn to love children building sand castles by the rising sea.

Dark-bright fire lit eyes.

For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence.

We do not have to romanticize our past in order to be aware of how it seeds our present.

The erotic has often been misnamed by men and used against women.

For each of us as women, there is a dark place within, where hidden and growing our true spirit rises, beautiful and tough as chestnut stanchions against our nightmare of weakness.

I learned so much from listening to people. And all I knew was, the only thing I had was honesty and openness.

I am deliberate and afraid of nothing.

Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.

We have to consciously study how to be tender with each other until it becomes a habit because what was native has been stolen from us, the love of Black women for each other.

I believe one of the hardest things you can do is conquer your fears, but if you have a goal, then it’s your job to open up and let it be real no matter how scary it seems.

I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.

There’s a freedom you begin to feel the closer you get to Austin, Texas.

If we begin to stop spewing the negative and really move into using our voices and our pens and our abilities that we have to reach millions of people to the positive, we can make a difference in the world.

Creativity has a lot to do with the main idea. Inspiration is what comes when you are dealing with the idea. But inspiration won’t invite what’s not there to begin with.

Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.

As in Geometry, the most natural way of beginning is from a Mathematical point; so is the same method in Observations and Natural history the most genuine, simple, and instructive.

If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst.

I’m still at the beginning of my career. It’s all a little new, and I’m still learning as I go.

But then, I suppose, when with the benefit of hindsight one begins to search one’s past for such ‘turning points’, one is apt to start seeing them everywhere.