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

Sexuality is one of the ways that we become enlightened, actually, because it leads us to self-knowledge.

How simple a thing it seems to me that to know ourselves as we are, we must know our mothers names.

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

I always have felt that elders are really important. I think it's because, in my little Southern black culture, elders really were respected. Everybody listened to them. They may not have agreed - that's a whole different story - but they would totally listen and consider what the elder had to say.

My work is about my life, and what I want to do with it.

Be compassionate to everyone. Don't just search for whatever it is that annoys and frightens you-see beyond those things to the basic human being. Especially see the child in the man or woman. Even if they are destroying you, allow a moment to see how lost in their own delusion and suffering they are.