I've always thought of myself as a reporter. When people ask why I don't stop writing, I say, `Look at what's happening in this world. Every day there's something exciting or disturbing to write about.’ With all that's going on, how could I stop?

My last defense / Is the present tense.

beware the easy griefs / that fool and fuel nothing.

When you love a man, he becomes more than a body. His physical limbs expand, and his outline recedes, vanishes. He is rich and sweet and right. He is part of the world, the atmosphere, the blue sky and the blue water.

It frightens me to realize that, if I had died before the age of fifty, I would have died a 'Negro' fraction.

A writer should get as much education as possible, but just going to school is not enough; if it were, all owners of doctorates would be inspired writers.

I don't like the idea of the black race being diluted out of existence. I like the idea of all of us being here.