Out of my flesh that hungers and my mouth that knows comes the shape I am seeking for reason.

Guilt and defensiveness are bricks in a wall against which we all flounder; they serve none of our futures.

All writers have periods when they stop writing, when they cannot write, and this is always painful and terrible because writing is like breathing.

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.

We have been raised to fear the yes within ourselves, our deepest cravings.

Within the lesbian community I am Black, and within the Black community I am a lesbian. Any attack against Black people is a lesbian and gay issue, because I and thousands of other Black women are part of the lesbian community. Any attack against lesbians and gays is a Black issue, because thousands of lesbians and gay men are Black. There is no hierarchy of oppression.

The sixties were characterized by a heady belief in instantaneous solutions.