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

The people who invented race, who grouped us together as "black," were inventing and categorizing their ability to do something vicious and wrong.

I'm always telling my students go to law school or become a doctor, do something, and then write. First of all you should have something to write about, and you only have something to write about if you do something.

when people say you're charming you are in deep trouble.

There's something to be said about a slightly plump person—you have just enough of too much.

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.

No matter how happy I had been in the past I do not long for it. The present is always the moment for which I love.