I'm writing out of desperation. I felt compelled to write to make sense of it to myself - so I don't end up saying peculiar things like 'I'm black and I'm proud.' I write so I don't end up as a set of slogans and clichés.

My disappointments stand up and grow ever taller. They will not be lost to me.

No matter how happy I had been in the past I do not long for it. The present is always the moment for which I love.

I didn't really understand racism because I grew up in an all-black society, so I didn't see how it was possible not to like me!

I'm sometimes afraid I'll cross a line and it'll be difficult to come back, say, to dinner.

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

That the world I was in could be soft, lovely, and nourishing was more than I could bear, and so I stood there and wept, for I didn't want to love one more thing in my life, didn't want one more thing that could make my heart break into a million little pieces at my feet.