“I was born in St. Louis, but I’m from Maplewood, New Jersey. Maplewood is completely different than the rest of New Jersey. It’s very small. It’s quietly affluent but more low-key. Lauryn Hill is from my town, though.”

Desperately yearning to accept its all as it should be.

Sugar makes me feel crazy – like, makes my body hurt kind of a thing. I don’t really eat fruit because it has a lot of sugar. I try not to eat a lot of red meat, but every now and again, I feel like I need iron or something – something that I’m missing.

I love empowering women. I think it’s crazy: if you ever try to belittle women, you’re playing yourself – I ride with whoever rides with me.

Searchin for peace be like fishing for water.

I’m a visual learner, so the film is a huge inspiration to me.

I’ve been known to wear pajamas onstage for the sole reason of wanting to make sure I’m free enough to execute new things vocally on stage and give my best performance possible.

I live in my imagination, so sometimes movies help me get lost. I feel like I’m in it.

I was raised orthodox Muslim. Very sheltered, very conservative.

I was a funky kid.

I was a gymnast for 13 years, so I was heavy into sports.

I just think I have too much anxiety to listen to music. Sometimes it feels like noise, and sometimes it’s so affecting that I can’t recover from it.

I love folk. I love rap.

I learned everything the hard way – like, literally, everything. I know that God does that to people that he has lessons for. I just wish that I had learned less extreme lessons.

Wearing a hijab never made me feel any more conservative – it made me feel safe. Then, after 9/11, I became the butt of a joke on the playground, so I stopped wearing it. Kids can be really cruel when you’re the only black girl in your Girl Scout troop.

I feel like when you say ‘activist,’ you have to have so much clarity, and I don’t always necessarily have so much clarity on how I want to help others, I just have this weird, deep urge to help other people. I’m trying to let God guide my body and use it as whatever kind of vehicle or vessel it needs to be.

It starts with trusting yourself, even if people are telling you you’re too young to trust yourself.

Even when the blood in my veins is the same as them, every cell in my body is against becoming like them. What a curse it is to hate the very thing that birth you.

When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished.

Not to be born surpasses all reckoning. The next best thing by far, when one has been born is to go back as swiftly as possible whence one came.

I have a relative who is also gay. We can’t help it if they were born that way.

Not to be born is, past all prizing, best.

America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of the Holy Scripture.

Everybody is worried about dying, but the cause of death is birth, so if you don’t want to die, you don’t get born!

Being male is a matter of birth. Being a man is a matter of age. But being a Gentleman is a matter of choice.