Each time a woman stands up for herself, without knowing it possibly, without claiming it, she stands up for all women.

Nature has no mercy at all. Nature says, "I'm going to snow. If you have on a bikini and no snowshoes, that's tough. I am going to snow anyway."

We write for the same reason that we walk, talk, climb mountains or swim the oceans - because we can. We have some impulse within us that makes us want to explain ourselves to other human beings.

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.

We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.

Christians already? It seems to me that it takes a lifetime of work.

I think all poems are commissioned. They just come to me without somebody outside commissioning them. The idea comes and I will live with them 'til I get it as close to what I mean. I've never been totally satisfied. I've come close a few times.