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

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.

My biggest role model right now is Beyonce, just ’cause she is a very, very strong, powerful woman, and that’s obviously the number one reason to be inspired by her. She is just killing every game there is to kill.

A woman has to live her life, or live to repent not having lived it.

Us boss chicks have to continue to stick together and change the game.

Women standing up for each other is critically important.

Every day is women’s day.

To call her a seamstress is irrelevant, She was not arrested for sewing. She was a freedom fighter.

I also think it is important for women to help one another. I have a saying: There is a special place in hell for women who don’t.

I definitely come from a line of strong women. It’s not only like my mother and my grandmother, but my aunties too.