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.

It was hollow, my triumph, I could feel that, but I held on to it just the same.

People only say I’m angry because I’m black and I’m a woman.

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.

...yet a memory cannot be trusted, for so much of the experience of the past is determined by the experience of the present.

I like to be in my pajamas all day. Sometimes I don't wash for days because I like to read and sit around. I like to eat in bed.

In a way, a garden is the most useless of creations, the most slippery of creations: it is not like a painting or a piece of sculpture-it won't accrue value as time goes on. Time is its enemy' time passing is merely the countdown for the parting between garden and gardener.