I'm just tired of hearing about God all the time. What has He got to do with anything?... I'm not going to be immoral or commit crimes because I don't believe. I don't even think about that. I just get so tired of Him getting the credit for things the human race achieves through its own effort. Now, there simply is no God. There's only man. And it's he who makes miracles.

Our Southside is a place apart: each piece of our living is a protest.

Sometimes, I can see the future stretched out in front of me - just as plain as day. The future hanging over there at the edge of my days. Just waiting for me.

I was born black and female.

The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely.

Though it be a thrilling and marvellous thing to be merely young and gifted in such times, it is doubly so - doubly dynamic - to be young, gifted and black.

I wish to live because life has within it that which is good, that which is beautiful, and that which is love.