The photograph of my brother that is in this album shows a young man, beautiful and perfect in the way of young people, for young people are always perfect and beautiful until they are not, until the moment they just are not.

Express everything you like. No word can hurt you. None. No idea can hurt you. Not being able to express an idea or word will hurt you more. Like a bullet.

I am not aware of anything below my neck. I live completely in my head.

My writing has always been met with derision or dismissal.

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!

"Race." I really can't understand it as anything other than something people say. The people who have said that you and I are both "black" and therefore deserve a certain kind of interaction with the world, they make race. I can't take them seriously.

The past is a room full of baggage and rubbish and sometimes things that are of use, but if they are of real use, I have kept them.