The history of race relations in America is very different than something like the Holocaust.

The thing to remember about the Declaration of Independence and the profession of freedom is that it was written by people who were quite free and who were surrounded by people who were not free. The people who wrote the Declaration of Independence were ventriloquists really. The obsession with freedom makes no sense when it applies to them.

I don't feel I'm angry. I feel as though I'm describing something true. If I had stabbed my husband, I could understand being called "angry." If I had an affair with my husband's best friend and written about that experience, I could see the anger. But I'm not doing that.

But you know, where did the Brontes go to college? Where did George Eliot go to college? Where did Thomas Paine or Thomas Jefferson or George Washington go? Did George Washington go to college? This idea which we now have that people ought to have these credentials is really ridiculous. Where did Homer go to college?

I was then at the height of my two-facedness: that is, outside I seemed one way, inside I was another; outside false, inside true.

A piece of cloth that is called "linen" has more validity than calling you and me "black" or "negro." "Cotton" has more validity as cotton than yours and my being "black."

Who you are is a mystery no one can answer, not even you.