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

Literature, it seems to me, is wisdom.

The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.

A dream is just a nightmare with lipstick.

Today is always here,’ said Sethe. ‘Tomorrow, never.

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.

Live your life with freedom and try to experience the best of what you want.  

Carry your wings to where your heart feels free.

A person whose mind is not free though he may not be in chains, is a slave, not a free man.

Losing all expectations is complete freedom.

So long as you do not achieve social liberty, whatever freedom is provided by the law is of no avail to you.

Our greatest freedom is the freedom to choose our attitude.

As soon as laws are necessary for men, they are no longer fit for freedom.

If there’s one observation that rings true in today’s changing world, it is that freedom and peace go hand in hand.