Black women sharing close ties with each other, politically or emotionally, are not the enemies of Black men.

Next time, ask: What's the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare.

Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.

For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence.

The more I use my strength in the service of my vision the less I am afraid.

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

Black writers, of whatever quality, who step outside the pale of what black writers are supposed to write about, or who black writers are supposed to be, are condemned to silences in black literary circles that are as total and as destructive as any imposed by racism.