A certain person wondered why a big strong girl like me wouldn't keep a job which paid a normal salary. I took my time to lead her and to read her every page. Even minimal people can't survive on minimal wage. A certain person wondered why I wait all week for you. I didn't have the words to describe just what you do. I said you had the motion of the ocean in your walk, and when you solve my riddles you don't even have to talk.

If you're a human being, you can attempt to do what other human beings have done. We don't understand talent any more than we understand electricity.

To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow.

When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature.

No human being can be more human than another human being. I liberate you from my ignorance.

I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear, I rise. Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear, I rise.