When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.

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.

We're supposed to see "universal" love as heterosexual. What I insist upon in my work is that there is no such thing as universal love in literature.

The erotic has often been misnamed by men and used against women. It has been made into the confused, the trivial, the psychotic, the plasticized sensation.

Because the machine will try to grind you into dust anyway, whether or not we speak.

Within the lesbian community I am Black, and within the Black community I am a lesbian. Any attack against Black people is a lesbian and gay issue, because I and thousands of other Black women are part of the lesbian community. Any attack against lesbians and gays is a Black issue, because thousands of lesbians and gay men are Black. There is no hierarchy of oppression.

But the true feminist deals out of a lesbian consciousness whether or not she ever sleeps with women.