“I want to discourage you from choosing anything or making any decision simply because it is safe. Things of value seldom are.”

Me and you, we got more yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow.

The peace I am thinking of is the dance of an open mind when it engages another equally open one.

There’s a difference between writing for a living and writing for life. If you write for a living, you make enormous compromises. If you write for life, you’ll work hard; you’ll do what’s honest, not what pays.

Books are a form of political action. Books are knowledge. Books are reflection. Books change your mind.

For me the history of the place of black people in this country is so varied, complex and beautiful. And impactful.

For me the history of the place of black people in this country is so varied, complex and beautiful. And impactful.

Love is or it ain’t. Thin love ain’t love at all.

Don’t beg anybody for anything, especially love.

And I am all the things I have ever loved: scuppernong wine, cool baptisms in silent water, dream books and number playing.

It is sheer good fortune to miss somebody long before they leave you.

All paradises, all utopias are designed by who is not there, by the people who are not allowed in.

Black women have always been friends. I mean, if you didn’t have each other you had nothing.

The pieces I am, she gather them and gave them back to me in all the right order.

When a child walks in the room, your child or anybody else’s child, do your eyes light up? That’s what they’re looking for.

Make a difference about something other than yourselves.

The enemy is not men. The enemy is the concept of patriarchy, the concept of patriarchy as the way to run the world or do things.

Sometimes we are blessed with being able to choose the time, and the arena, and the manner of our revolution, but more usually we must do battle where we are standing.

Cheating on a good woman is like choosing trash over treasure.

If people in the media cannot decide whether they are in the business of reporting news or manufacturing propaganda, it is all the more important that the public understand that difference, and choose their news sources accordingly.

Change is the immediate responsibility of each of us, wherever and however we are standing, in whatever arena we choose.

Sometimes we choose to be cold, to act cold.

One of the huge mistakes people make is that they try to force an interest on themselves. You don’t choose your passions; your passions choose you.

A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.

You are free to choose, but the choices you make today will determine what you have, be, and do in the tomorrow of your life.