If you don’t define yourself for yourself then you will be crushed into other's fantasies of you and eaten alive

For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.

I agreed to take part in a New York University Institute for Humanities conference a year ago. . . .

Battling racism and battling heterosexism and battling apartheid share the same urgency inside me as battling cancer.

I cannot shut you out the way I shut the others out, so maybe I can destroy you. Must destroy you?

Self-care is not about self-indulgence , it is about self-preservati on.

And when the sun rises we are afraid it might not remain when the sun sets we are afraid it might not rise in the morning when our stomachs are full we are afraid of indigestion when our stomachs are empty we are afraid we may never eat again when we are loved we are afraid love will vanish when we are alone we are afraid love will never return and when we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed but when we are silent we are still afraid So it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive