“As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think.”

You have to be a little tough, and rely on yourself. And tell people ‘No’.

To get to a place where you could love anything you chose – not to need permission for desire – well now that was freedom.

We mistook violence for passion, indolence for leisure, and thought recklessness was freedom.

You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.

A friend gathers all the pieces and gives them back in the right order.

If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.

Black boys became criminalized. I was in constant dread for their lives, because they were targets everywhere. They still are.

Beauty was not simply something to behold; it was something one could do.

All important things are hard.

Black people’s music is in a class by itself and always has been.

I think some aspects of writing can be taught. Obviously, you can’t teach vision or talent. But you can help with comfort.

From my point of view, your life is already a miracle of chance waiting for you to shape its destiny.

The function of freedom is to free someone else.

A sister can be seen as someone who is both ourselves and very much not ourselves – a special kind of double.

It was a fine cry – loud and long – but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow.

I have only to break into the tightness of a strawberry, and I see summer – its dust and lowering skies.

The dream is yours for a reason.

Hope for love, pray for love, wish for love, dream for love…but don’t put your life on hold waiting for love.

You are a dream that makes it difficult to get up in the morning.

We have to reconceptualize and understand that the act of pursuing our dreams and being our full selves is what allows us to feel alive.

Most people spend their entire lives on a fantasy island called ‘Someday I’ll.’

Believe in your dreams and dream big. And then after you’ve done that, dream bigger.

It’s a great privilege to dream.

I dream a world… where wretchedness will hang its head and joy, like a pearl, attends the needs of all mankind. Of such I dream, my world!