Here I am, a product of something really vicious, product of the Atlantic slave trade. And yet, I give nary a thought to some of the awful things happening right now in the world.

Habit gives endurance, and fatigue is the best night cap.

I'll read anything. In fact, I'll read while I'm doing other things, which is not a good idea.

But some natives--most natives in the world--cannot go anywhere. They are too poor. They are too poor to go anywhere. They are too poor to escape the reality of their lives; and they are too poor to live properly in the place where they live, which is the very place you, the tourist, want to go--so when the natives see you, the tourist, they envy you, they envy your ability to leave your own banality and boredom, they enjoy your ability to turn their own banality and boredom into a source of pleasure for yourself.

For me, writing isn't a way of being public or private; it's just a way of being. The process is always full of pain, but I like that. It's a reality, and I just accept it as something not to be avoided. This is the life I have. This is the life I write about.

I like cooking, but I think someone else ought to do the dishes.

I think a woman is powerless if she cannot freely claim the right to her reproductive capacity. Society can talk about anything it likes, except a woman's reproductive existence.