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

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

You need a whole community to raise a child. I have raised two children, alone.

You are your own stories.

I don’t think one parent can raise a child. I don’t think two parents can raise a child. You really need the whole village.

But to find out the truth about how dreams die, one should never take the word of the dreamer.

He wants to put his story next to hers.

There is no such thing as race. None. There is just a human race – scientifically, anthropologically. Racism is a construct, a social construct, it has a social function, racism.

Like any artist without an art form, she became dangerous.

Misery don’t call ahead. That’s why you have to stay awake – otherwise it just walks on in your door.

Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.

At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough.

Art invites us to know beauty and to solicit it, summon it, from even the most tragic of circumstances.

Beloved, you are my sister, you are my daughter, you are my face; you are me.

Passion is never enough; neither is skill.

My theory is that the world is a difficult place to live in and distraction is the name of the game.

If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it.

Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.

Any person capable of angering you becomes your master; he can anger you only when you permit yourself to be disturbed by him.

The true hero is one who conquers his own anger and hatred.

Anger may in time change to gladness; vexation may be succeeded by content. But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life.

My tongue will tell the anger of my heart, or else my heart concealing it will break.

If I stayed angry at other people, I would miss finding friends among those I was angry with.

Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Deal with brute nature. Be cold and hungry and weary.

When you are offended at any man’s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.