If more Africans had eaten missionaries, the continent would be in better shape.

I want to write so well that a person is 30 or 40 pages in a book of mine ... before she realizes she's reading.

Ritie, don't worry 'cause you ain't pretty. Plenty pretty women I seen digging ditches or worse. You smart. I swear to God, I rather you have a good mind than a cute behind.

I answer the heroic question, 'Death, where is thy sting?' with 'It is in my heart and mind and memories.

I'm here, and I do my best to be completely centered at the place I'm at, then I go forward to the next place.

I don't trust anyone who doesn't laugh.

In today's climate in our country, which is sickened with the pollution of pollution, threatened with the prominence of AIDS, riddled with burgeoning racism, rife with growing huddles of the homeless, we need art and we need art in all forms. We need all methods of art to be present, everywhere present, and all the time present.