In my writing I'm trying to explore the violations people commit upon each other. And the important thing isn't whether I'm angry. The more important thing is, is it true? Do these things really happen?

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!

It's too easy to say this or that is "race," and that has been a vehicle for an incredible amount of wrong in the world.

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

When I start to write something, I suppose I want it to change me, to make me into something not myself.

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.

An ugly thing, that is what you are when you become a tourist, an ugly, empty thing, a stupid thing, a piece of rubbish pausing here and there to gaze at this and taste that, and it will never occur to you that the people who inhabit the place in which you have just paused cannot stand you.