In South Korea, they believe that when you turn 60, you've become a baby again and the rest of your life should be totally about joy and happiness, and people should leave you alone, and I just think that that's the height of intelligence.

What gardening teaches us is that if you plant things, they'll come up. But you have to be willing to wait for them to bear fruit because things are seasonal.

Humans - whatever billions we are - we don't have the control. We are considered expendable, basically.

Poetry, I have discovered, is always unexpected and always as faithful and honest as dreams.

She was so quiet. So reflective. And she could erase herself, her spirit, with a swiftness that truly startled, when she knew the people around her could not respect it.

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

Oh, Celie, unbelief is a terrible thing. And so is the hurt we cause others unknowingly.