I don't require myself or anyone to go beyond what they feel they can do. I just do suggest - for their own eventual happiness - that they go as far as they can. They can usually go much further than they think.

Find yourself a cup of tea; the teapot is behind you. Now tell me about hundreds of things. Saki Tea to the English is really a picnic indoors.

It's better to have your blackness taken away than to stand and lie about who you actually are.

Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book, If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for.

I'm the most stubborn person I know.

Man corrupt everything, say Shug. He on your box of grits, in your head, and all over the radio. He try to make you think he everywhere. Soon as you think he everywhere, you think he God. But he ain't. Whenever you trying to pray, and man plop himself on the other end of it, tell him to git lost, say Shug. Conjure up the flowers, wind, water, a big rock.

Only dead people need loud music, you know.