I believe that Christianity trains black people, especially black women, to think like slaves, and I believe that Islam is mainly fueled by its hatred for women.

My autobiography is one of the truest, most frankly written books ever published in the western hemisphere.

I loved 1930's women's pictures'films by Josef Von Sternberg or William Wyler. So, I fashioned a style out of that. The integrity and ethos of what I would write, however, came from the films of Ousmane Sembene and from reading Richard Wright, Toni Morrison, Sylvia Plath and Alice Walker.

As for developing a writing style'I would say that I tried to copy the pacing of the old movies I loved as a kid.

I never wanted anyone to know about me and Osama [Bin Laden]. I wanted that to be a secret that I carried to my grave, and since I wasn't the one who revealed it'it's definitely something that I wish was in the closet. It's destroyed my career.

The Black woman is the most unprotected, unloved woman on earth...she is the only flower on earth...that grows unwatered.

I wasn't allowed to use people's real names, such as my siblings and my children's father, but there's nothing fabricated or untrue in my autobiography.