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

Not everyone's life is what they make it. Some people's life is what other people make it.

Poetry is the lifeblood of rebellion, revolution, and the raising of consciousness.

To acknowledge our ancestors means we are aware that we did not make ourselves, that the line stretches all the way back, perhaps to God; or to Gods. We remember them because it is an easy thing to forget: that we are not the first to suffer, rebel, fight, love and die. The grace with which we embrace life, in spite of the pain, the sorrow, is always a measure of what has gone before.

Eventually I knew what hair wanted; it wanted to be itself ... to be left alone by anyone, including me, who did not love it as it was.

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

A grown child is a dangerous thing.