I would like to be known as an intelligent woman, a courageous woman, a loving woman, a woman who teaches by being.

Each of us has that right, that possibility, to invent ourselves daily. If a person does not invent herself, she will be invented. So, to be bodacious enough to invent ourselves is wise.

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 needs of a society determine its ethics.

I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back.

Love is that condition in the human spirit so profound that it allows me to survive, and better than that, to thrive with passion, compassion, and style.

Like a pianist runs her fingers over the keys, I'll search my mind for what to say. Now, the poem may want you to write it. And then sometimes you see a situation and think, 'I'd like to write about that.' Those are two different ways of being approached by a poem, or approaching a poem.