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

She learned the intricacy of loneliness: the horror of color, the roar of soundlessness and the menace of familiar objects lying still.

You are your best thing.

I didn’t want to speak for black people. I wanted to speak to and to be among. It’s us.

I’ve spent my entire writing life trying to make sure that the white gaze was not the dominant one in any of my books.

Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.

Lonely was much better than alone.

Anything dead coming back to life hurts.

I type in one place, but I write all over the house.

There is an incredible amount of magic and feistiness in black men that nobody has been able to wipe out. But everybody has tried.

Writing is really a way of thinking–not just feeling but thinking about things that are disparate, unresolved, mysterious, problematic or just sweet.

There is really nothing more to say-except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how.

I get angry about things, then go on and work.

When there is pain, there are no words. All pain is the same.

As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think.

You need a whole community to raise a child. I have raised two children, alone.

You are your own stories.

The happiness you feel is in direct proportion to the love you give.

I still fall for your everyday.

Sometimes when you’re in love, there are things you feel that you can’t really explain. It doesn’t really make sense. That’s how I feel when i’m in love

So you’re somebody now, but what’s somebody in a nobody town?

A perfect date is probably something somewhere where you can kind of communicate and talk to the person.

Love, how many roads to obtain a kiss.

I don’t actually like dates. I get awkward as I never know what to do.

I do not want you to hear that I love you, but I want you to feel it without me having to say.