I want to yell so loud that Baby Girl can hear me that dirty ain't a color, disease ain't the Negro side a town. I want to stop that moment from coming - and it come in ever white child's life - when they start to think that colored folks ain't as good as whites. ... I pray that wasn't her moment, Pray I still got time.

Rich folk don't try so hard

Bosoms are for bedrooms and breastfeeding.

You is kind. You is smart. You is important.

I reckon that’s the risk you run, letting somebody else raise you chilluns.

I intend to stay on her like hair on soap.

Truth. It feels cool, like water washing over my sticky-hot body. Cooling a heat that's been burning me up all my life. Truth, I say inside my head again, just for that feeling.