Sometimes when someone says something stupid, my friends and I just read the reviews out loud and collapse with laughter at the stupidity of it all.

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.

I would be lost without the feeling of antagonism that people have towards me. I write out of defiance.

The slave trade was globalism. Why people insist that globalism, after its hideous history, is a good thing, I do not know.

A piece of cloth that is called "linen" has more validity than calling you and me "black" or "negro." "Cotton" has more validity as cotton than yours and my being "black."

I read about writers who have routines. They write at certain times of the day. I can't do that. I am always writing-but in my head.

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!