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.

Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence.

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.

Artists are messengers whose responsibility is to unite the world -- a faith that will lead not to destruction but to transformation.

We will be ourselves and free, or die in the attempt. Harriet Tubman was not our great-grandmother for nothing.

My mother had handed down respect for the possibilities...and the will to grasp them.

Always with me was the inner twin: my true nature, my true self. It is timeless, free, compassionate and in love with whatever is natural to me