There's a place in you that you must keep inviolate. You must keep it pristine. Clean. So that nobody has a right to curse you or treat you badly. Nobody. No mother, father, no wife, no husband, no­­­-nobody. You have to have a place where you say: 'Stop it. Back up. Don't you know I'm a child of God?

When I try to describe myself to God I say, 'Lord, remember me? Black? Female? Six-foot tall? The writer?' And I almost always get God's attention.

Every person needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future.

If I insist on being pessimistic, there is always tomorrow. Today I am blessed.

Human beings are more alike than unalike. Whether in Paris, Texas, or Paris, France, we all want to have good jobs where we are needed and respected and paid just a little more than we deserve. We want healthy children, safe streets, to be loved and have the unmitigated gall to accept love. If we are religious, we want a place to perpetuate God. If not, we want a good lecture every once in a while. And everyone wants someplace to party on Saturday nights.

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.

One must learn to care for oneself first, so that one can then dare to care for someone else.