I write not only what I want to read...I write all the things I should have been able to read.

Don't wait around for other people to be happy for you. Any happiness you get you've got to make yourself.

What the mind doesn't understand, it worships or fears.

My mother was very strong. Once, she picked up a coconut and smashed it against my father's head. It taught me about women defending themselves and not collapsing in a heap.

There are those who believe Black people possess the secret of joy and that it is this that will sustain them through any spiritual or moral or physical devastation.

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.

I can spend two hours grubbing about in my garden, dazed with pleasure and intent, and it feels like five minutes.