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.

I am not only a casualty, I am also a warrior.

Every Black woman in America lives her life somewhere along a wide curve of ancient and unexpressed angers.

The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings.

Every woman I have ever loved has left her print upon me, where I loved some invaluable piece of myself apart from me-so different that I had to stretch and grow in order to recognize her. And in that growing, we came to separation, that place where work begins.

Anger, used, does not destroy. Hatred does.

We have to consciously study how to be tender with each other until it becomes a habit because what was native has been stolen from us, the love of Black women for each other.