“Standing in line is a form of oppression.”

Much of my life had been devoted to trying not to cry in front of people who loved me.

Maybe there is something you’re afraid to say, or someone you’re afraid to love, or somewhere you’re afraid to go. It’s gonna hurt. It’s gonna hurt because it matters.

It is so hard to leave, until you leave. And then it is the easiest goddamned thing in the world.

Y’all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die.

When you acknowledge that there is nothing repulsive or unforgivable or shameful about yourself, it becomes easier to be that authentic person and feel like you’re living a less performed life.

I don’t know a perfect person. I only know flawed people who are still worth loving.

I may die young, but at least I’ll die smart.

Your responsibility is not to the people you’re making the gift for, but the gift itself.

I enjoy looking at beautiful people, and I decided a while ago not to deny myself the simpler pleasures of existence

You can love someone so much but you can never love people as much as you can miss them.

You cannot invent an algorithm that is as good at recommending books as a good bookseller.

You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I’m grateful.

The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with.

It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you.

The town was paper, but the memories were not.

Everything that comes together falls apart.

I realized now that militancy in the best sense of the word was the only answer where the black man was concerned, that any black man who wasn’t a militant in 1970 was either blind or a coward.

The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them in parliament.

It makes no sense to me that my gay friends cannot get married to each other because a certain slice of Christianity doesn’t believe in gay marriage.

Punish the deed, not the breed.

I can’t stand black guys. I would never touch one. It’s gross.

If you look at Cuba what’s the benefit in being in Cuba? Really? It’s almost like being in prison. You can’t think. You can’t have your own opinions. You have no opportunity. You just gotta live life the way you were born into it.

A woman who spends all day washing and cooking and ironing doesn’t want to go to the movies to watch a film about a woman who spends all day washing and cooking and ironing.

There was segregation everywhere. The churches, buses and schools were all segregated and you couldn’t even go into the same restaurants.