The forest is the first cathedral. I felt that from the time I was a child. I credit my mother with that. I used to think it came from her Native-American side. Whichever it was, she instinctively connected with nature, and taught me that. Church just could not hold my spirit.

Meditation is like the cloak of the good thief. You find a corner or somewhere where you can actually entertain your own self and your own soul, and understand what your work [is] here.

At one point I learned transcendental meditation. This was 30-something years ago. It took me back to the way that I naturally was as a child growing up way in the country, rarely seeing people. I was in that state of oneness with creation and it was as if I didn't exist except as a part of everything.

She thought of how precious it was to be able to know another person over many years. There was incomparable richness in it.

I'm one in what I do and what I say and what I believe.

We writers - we're the snowflakes of the literary world. We each have our own shape.

Some colored people so scared of whitefolks they claim to love the cotton gin.