When you are a member of an out-group, and you challenge others with whom you share this outsider position to examine some aspect of their lives that distorts differences between you, then there can be a great deal of pain.

When we create out of our experiences, as feminists of color, women of color, we have to develop those structures that will present and circulate our culture.

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

If our history has taught us anything, it is that action for change directed against the external conditions of our oppressions is not enough.

I know the anger lies inside of me like I know the beat of my heart and the taste of my spit. It is easier to be furious than to be yearning. Easier to crucify myself in you than to take on the threatening universe of whiteness by admitting that we are worth wanting each other.

I learned to read from Mrs. Augusta Baker, the children's librarian. ... If that was the only good deed that lady ever did in her life, may she rest in peace. Because that deed saved my life, if not sooner, then later, when sometimes the only thing I had to hold on to was knowing I could read.

Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge.