Whoever you are, whatever you are, start with that, whether salt of the earth or only white sugar.

Yes, Mother. I can see you are flawed. You have not hidden it. That is your greatest gift to me.

Books became my world because the world I was in was very hard.

I'm mad about the waste that happens when people who love each other can't even bring themselves to talk.

I think writing really helps you heal yourself. I think if you write long enough, you will be a healthy person. That is, if you write what you need to write, as opposed to what will make money, or what will make fame.

The more I wonder, the more I love.

The sight of a Black nun strikes their sentimentality; and, as I am unalterably rooted in native ground, they consider me a work of primitive art, housed in a magical color; the incarnation of civilized, anti-heathenism, and the fruit of a triumphing idea.