Your silence will not protect you.

For women, the need and desire to nurture each other is not pathological but redemptive, and it is within that knowledge that our real power is rediscovered. It is this real connection, which is so feared by a patriarchal world.

Poetry is not a luxury.

Some problems we share as women, some we do not. You [white women] fear your children will grow up to join the patriarchy and testify against you; we fear our children will be dragged from a car and shot down in the street, and you will turn your backs on the reasons they are dying.

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

It is axiomatic that if we do not define ourselves for ourselves, we will be defined by others-for their use and to our detriment.

I learned so much from listening to people. And all I knew was, the only thing I had was honesty and openness.