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 are all human; therefore, nothing human can be alien to us.

When I love somebody, I like him to be around; I like him to take me out to dinner; I like to look at the sunset with him. But if not, I love him and I hope he's looking at the same sun I am. Loving someone liberates the lover as well as the beloved. And that kind of love comes with age. Some of this wisdom came to me after I was 50 or 60.

I want all my senses engaged. Let me absorb the world's variety and uniqueness.

We love and lose in China, we weep on England's moors, and laugh and moan in Guinea, and thrive on Spanish shores. We seek success in Finland, are born and die in Maine. In minor ways we differ, in major we're the same.

We really are 15 countries, and it's remarkable that each of us thinks we represent the real America. The Midwesterner in Kansas, the black American in Durham - both are certain they are the real American.

I'm a feminist. I've been a female for a long time now. It'd be stupid not to be on my own side.