The garden has taught me to live, to appreciate the times when things are fallow and when they're not.

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.

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.

What distinguished my life from my brother's is that my mother didn't like me. When I became a woman, I seemed to repel her.

What frustrates me is to see African-Americans behave as though what European-Americans say is worthwhile. It simply isn't. It's just some silly people who can make laws and have the power to enforce them. I'm often amazed at the conversations black people have about themselves. They ought to be having these conversations about white people. It's white people who are flawed and at fault.

I've never gotten used to winter and never will.

When once I got to America I fell in love with hippie culture, and I've always wanted to live in the country and grow organic vegetables.