“My idea of a delicious time is to read a book that is wonderful. But the ruling passion of my life is being a seeker after truth and the divine.”

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.

Every terrorist regime in the world uses isolation to break people’s spirits.

The Bible was composed in such a way that as beginners mature, its meaning grows with them.

It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.

I walked into my own book, seeking peace. It was night, and I made a careless movement inside the dream; I turned too brusquely the corner and I bruised myself against my madness.

You can make anything by writing.

You have to be a speedy reader because there’s so so much to read.

My Best Friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read.

If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.

I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.