“If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, you must be the one to write it.”

You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.

A friend gathers all the pieces and gives them back in the right order.

If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.

Black boys became criminalized. I was in constant dread for their lives, because they were targets everywhere. They still are.

Beauty was not simply something to behold; it was something one could do.

All important things are hard.

Black people’s music is in a class by itself and always has been.

I think some aspects of writing can be taught. Obviously, you can’t teach vision or talent. But you can help with comfort.

From my point of view, your life is already a miracle of chance waiting for you to shape its destiny.

The function of freedom is to free someone else.

A sister can be seen as someone who is both ourselves and very much not ourselves – a special kind of double.

It was a fine cry – loud and long – but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow.

I have only to break into the tightness of a strawberry, and I see summer – its dust and lowering skies.

What a woman. What a life.

A writer’s life and work are not a gift to mankind; they are its necessity.

In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent. This is precisely the time when artists go to work.

The more you read the Bible; and the more you meditate on it, the more you will be astonished with it.

To know yourself you need not go to any book, to any priest, to any psychologist. The whole treasure is within yourself.

Books are infinite in number and time is short. The secret of knowledge is to take what is essential. Take that and try to live up to it.

But a Book is only the Heart’s Portrait- every Page a Pulse.

That Book, the Bible, accounts for the supremacy of England. England has become great & happy by the knowledge of the true God through Jesus Christ.

The paperback is very interesting but I find it will never replace the hardcover book – it makes a very poor doorstop.

A person has to keep something to herself or you’re life is just a layout in a magazine.

Defend the Bible? I’d sooner defend a lion. You don’t defend the Bible; you open its cage and let it roar.