“One of the most subversive institutions in the United States is the public library.”

I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else’s whim or to someone else’s ignorance.

Life-transforming ideas have always come to me through books.

The rage of the oppressed is never the same as the rage of the privileged.

Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.

The people I love, I’m committed to loving for the rest of my life.

What we cannot imagine cannot come into being.

No black woman writer in this culture can write “too much”. Indeed, no woman writer can write “too much”. No woman has ever written enough.

You can only realize change if you live simply. Once people want enormous excess, you can hardly do social change.

To love well is the task in all meaningful relationships, not just romantic bonds.

There is no life to be found in violence. Every act of violence brings us closer to death.

Justice demands integrity. It’s to have a moral universe – not only know what is right or wrong but to put things in perspective, weigh things. Justice is different from violence and retribution; it requires complex accounting.

When we choose to love, we choose to move against fear, against alienation and separation. The choice to love is a choice to connect, to find ourselves in the other.

To know love we have to invest time and commitment.

To know love we have to invest time and commitment.

Once you do away with the idea of people as fixed, static entities, then you see that people can change, and there is hope.

Honesty and openness is always the foundation of insightful dialogue.

American inequality didn’t just happen. It was created.

It’s not your fault you were born into a poor family or country.

Each day we understand better what the Indians say, and they us, so that very often we are intelligible to each other.

One thing about our country that is constant is cricket.

I’m telling you that India is that way, now set my course.

There is no negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough, to live up to their own constitution.

A thought-provoking recipe for reclaiming America’s heritage of liberty and self-governance.

I realized that I was connected to Africa.