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.

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

A psychiatrist once asked me to draw a picture of my family. This is when I was a member of a family of four. I drew the three other people in the family first, bodies and heads. And then, last, I began to draw myself - but gave up.

I would pretend when I was a child that I was Charlotte Brontë, because I'd read Jane Eyre when I was ten and, although I didn't understand it, I loved the idea that this woman had written a book. I wanted to be her.

I'm so used to being misunderstood.

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.

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