He must have smiled at me, though I don't really know, but I don't like to think that I would love someone who hadn't first smiled at me.

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!

Out of the corner of one eye, I could see my mother. Out of the corner of the other eye, I could see her shadow on the wall, cast there by the lamplight. It was a big and solid shadow, and it looked so much like my mother that I became frightened. For I could not be sure whether for the rest of my life I would be able to tell when it was really my mother and when it was really her shadow standing between me and the rest of the world.

My writing has always been met with derision or dismissal.

I'm sometimes afraid I'll cross a line and it'll be difficult to come back, say, to dinner.

My disappointments stand up and grow ever taller. They will not be lost to me.

The inevitable is no less a shock just because it is inevitable.