“Me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.”

Something that is loved is never lost.

You don’t have to love me but you damn well have to respect me.

Anger is better. There is a sense of being in anger. A reality and presence. An awareness of worth. It is a lovely surging.

I didn’t fall in love, I rose in it.

If you can only be tall because someone else is on their knees, then you have a serious problem. And white people have a very, very serious problem.

Navigating a white male world was not threatening. It wasn’t even interesting. I was more interesting than they were.

Love is never any better than the lover.

You free. Nothing and nobody is obliged to save you but you.

We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.

Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.

She learned the intricacy of loneliness: the horror of color, the roar of soundlessness and the menace of familiar objects lying still.

You are your best thing.

I didn’t want to speak for black people. I wanted to speak to and to be among. It’s us.

I’ve spent my entire writing life trying to make sure that the white gaze was not the dominant one in any of my books.

Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.

Lonely was much better than alone.

Most people assume that women are responsible for households and child care. Most couples operate that way – not all. That fundamental assumption holds women back.

My goal in a couple of years is to try to build a successful fashion house like Armani or Versace. I want that more than anything.

When woman work outside the home and share breadwinning duties, couples are more likely to stay together. In fact, the risk of divorce reduces by about half when a wife earns half the income and a husband does half the housework.

Greater love hath no man than to attend the Episcopal Church with his wife.

I think the best partner you can have is someone who makes you want to be the best form of yourself.

My motivational music is any music that helps me escape. There are certain records that take you to euphoria, when you’re partying and havin’ a good time, dancin’ with a couple people.

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.

My father had a couple of kids at the beginning of the Depression. There was not much employment. Not much welfare. People barely got by. People were tougher then.