There's always someone asking you to underline one piece of yourself - whether it's Black, woman, mother, dyke, teacher, etc. - because that's the piece that they need to key in to. They want to dismiss everything else.

Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference - those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are black, who are older - know that survival is not an academic skill...For the master's tools will not dismantle the master's house. They will never allow us to bring about genuine change.

But the true feminist deals out of a lesbian consciousness whether or not she ever sleeps with women.

It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.

Poetry is not a luxury.

Afraid is a country with no exit visas.

Wherever the bird with no feet flew, she found trees with no limbs.