If you have only one smile in you give it to the people you love.

We, unaccustomed to courage exiles from delight live coiled in shells of loneliness until love leaves its high holy temple and comes into our sight to liberate us into life. Love arrives and in its train come ecstasies old memories of pleasure ancient histories of pain. Yet if we are bold, love strikes away the chains of fear from our souls. We are weaned from our timidity In the flush of love's light we dare be brave And suddenly we see that love costs all we are and will ever be. Yet it is only love which sets us free.

There is a kind of strength that is almost frightening in Black women. It's as if a steel rod runs right through the head down to the feet.

The public library building, in my view, is just a little lower than the church, the cathedral, the temple, the synagogue and the mosque. Within those walls and along those stacks, I have found security and assurance.

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.

Just because I am wheelchair-bound doesn't mean I don't get around.

It's very hard for adults to maintain respect and romance so that a love affair can be sustained over years.