“Life-transforming ideas have always come to me through books.”

The political core of any movement for freedom in the society has to have the political imperative to protect free speech.

Sometimes people try to destroy you, precisely because they recognize your power – not because they don’t see it, but because they see it and they don’t want it to exist.

One of the most subversive institutions in the United States is the public library.

I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else’s whim or to someone else’s ignorance.

The rage of the oppressed is never the same as the rage of the privileged.

Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.

The people I love, I’m committed to loving for the rest of my life.

What we cannot imagine cannot come into being.

No black woman writer in this culture can write “too much”. Indeed, no woman writer can write “too much”. No woman has ever written enough.

You can only realize change if you live simply. Once people want enormous excess, you can hardly do social change.

To love well is the task in all meaningful relationships, not just romantic bonds.

There is no life to be found in violence. Every act of violence brings us closer to death.

Justice demands integrity. It’s to have a moral universe – not only know what is right or wrong but to put things in perspective, weigh things. Justice is different from violence and retribution; it requires complex accounting.

When we choose to love, we choose to move against fear, against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect, to find ourselves in the other.

To know love we have to invest time and commitment.

To know love we have to invest time and commitment.

The public library is more than a repository of books. It’s a mysterious, wondrous place with the power to change lives.

Books -where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables.

To create a market for your writing you have to be consistent, professional, a continuing writer – not just a one-article or a one-story or a one-book man.

I write books I’d enjoy reading, I’m the reader standing behind my shoulder.

One thing that makes me prefer people over books is shared laughter.

Every time you finish a book, you have a terrible feeling that there’s just never going to be another one. But fortunately, so far, the next one has always shown up.

The graveyard is the richest place on the surface of the earth because there you will see the books that were not published, ideas that were not harnessed, songs that were not sung, and drama pieces that were never acted.

I love books and going to bookstores. My favorite sound is the sound of the needle hitting the record.