“A writer’s life and work are not a gift to mankind; they are its necessity.”

I dream a dream that dreams back at me.

If there’s a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.

Being able to laugh got me through.

What’s the world for you if you can’t make it up the way you want it?

I always know the ending; that’s where I start.

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.

The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him – it cannot fail.

People who have a religion should be glad, for not everyone has the gift of believing in heavenly things.

One of the greatest gifts adults can give – to their offspring and to their society – is to read to children.

Learning is a gift, even when pain is your teacher!

Some are born great. Some achieve greatness. Some get it as a graduation gift.

Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back by becoming more.

God gave me a gift to do other things besides play the game of basketball.

Be proud of your choices, not your gifts.