“Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”

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.

I don’t think one parent can raise a child. I don’t think two parents can raise a child. You really need the whole village.

But to find out the truth about how dreams die, one should never take the word of the dreamer.

He wants to put his story next to hers.

There is no such thing as race. None. There is just a human race – scientifically, anthropologically. Racism is a construct, a social construct, it has a social function, racism.

Like any artist without an art form, she became dangerous.

Misery don’t call ahead. That’s why you have to stay awake – otherwise it just walks on in your door.

At some point in life the world’s beauty becomes enough.

Art invites us to know beauty and to solicit it, summon it, from even the most tragic of circumstances.

Beloved, you are my sister, you are my daughter, you are my face; you are me.

I will not allow the light to blind me, not when even the darkness couldn’t claim me.

Claiming certainty without corroborating evidence is stupid.

I resolved to claim for my sex all that an impartial Creator had bestowed, which, by custom and a perverted application of the Scriptures, had been wrested from woman.

We, we live! ours are the hours, and the living have their claims.

How you look is your statement, because it’s a claiming of yourself.

Owning our power means claiming the credibility and uniqueness of our own humanity.

People are slow to claim confidence in undertakings of magnitude.

I’m not against the government building roads. That is a legitimate government function. But I am very much against the government claiming that their building the road is the reason somebody on the road is successful.