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

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.

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.

When men dream, each has his own world. When they are awake, they have a common world.

I remember awakening one morning and finding everything smeared with the color of forgotten love.

I have left orders to be awakened at any time during national emergency, even if I’m in a cabinet meeting.

From childhood’s hour I have not been. As others were, I have not seen. As others saw, I could not awaken. My heart to joy at the same tone. And all I loved, I loved alone.

Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure – that of being Salvador Dali.

The ability to read awoke inside of me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.

Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

Love is heavy and light, bright and dark, hot and cold, sick and healthy, asleep and awake- its everything except what it is!