People who work hard often work too hard. ... May we learn to honor the hammock, the siesta, the nap and the pause in all its forms.

It no longer bothers me that I may be constantly searching for father figures; by this time, I have found several and dearly enjoyed knowing them all.

No matter how hidden the cruelty, no matter how far off the screams of pain and terror, we live in one world. We are one people.

Dear God...I have always been a good girl. Maybe you can give me a sign letting me know what is happening to me.

Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence - as it saves most writers who live in 'interesting' oppressive times and are not afflicted by personal immunity.

I'm very disappointed in Barack Obama. I was very much in support of him in the beginning, but I cannot support war. I cannot support droning. I cannot support capitulating to the banks. I cannot support his caving in to Benjamin Netanyahu. I think many black people support him because they're so happy to have handsome black man in the White House. But it doesn't make me happy if that handsome black man in the White House is betraying all of our traditional values of peace, peoplehood, caring about strangers, feeding the hungry, and not bombing children.

In the far upper corner of my altar is a photo of Joan Crawford in her most fierce Mommy Dearest mode, just to remind me of some of the cost of everyone's hard-earned sweetness and light.