I'm the most stubborn person I know.

I started out as a poet. I've always been a poet since I was 7 or 8. And so I feel myself to be fundamentally a poet who got into writing novels.

Freedom, after all, is like love: the more you give to others, the more you have.

When life descends into the pit I must become my own candle Willingly burning my self To light up the darkness around me.

I think there is a sense of being forced at this time to look at America's really large shadow and that's not all that bad.

What did it mean for a black woman to be an artist in our grandmothers' time? In our great-grandmothers' day? It is an answer cruel enough to stop the blood.

Curiosity is my natural state and has led me headlong into every worthwhile experience (never mind the others) I have ever had.