Then she wished, more rationally, that she could love him without needing him. Need gave him power without his trying; need was the choicelessness she often felt around him.

One of the things that struck me when I came to the U.S. was discovering American poverty.

Race doesn't really exist for you because it has never been a barrier. Black folks don't have that choice.

I had consumed a lot of American culture, but I was not quite prepared for the reality of American poverty.

Because of writers like Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye … I realized that people like me, girls with skin the color of chocolate, whose kinky hair could not form ponytails, could also exist in literature.

People have crushes on priests all the time, you know. It’s exciting to have to deal with God as a rival.

How easy it was to lie to strangers, to create with strangers the versions of our lives we imagined.