If you're a writer, the answer to everything is yes.

We black women are the single group in the West intact. And anybody can see we're pretty shaky. We are, however (all praises), the only group that derives its identity from itself.

Poetry is the most mistaught subject in any school because we teach poetry by form and not by content.

I always loved English because whatever human beings are, we are storytellers. It is our stories that give a light to the future. When I went to college I became a history major because history is such a wonderful story of who we think we are. English is much more a story of who we really are.

A lot of people refuse to do things because they don't want to go naked... . We as black people, we as people, we as the human species have got to get used to the fact we're not going to be right most of the time, not even when our intentions are good. We've got to go naked and see what happens.

Nina Simone's music is incredibly honest. That's like saying, "Why does Jesus' word still stay around?" It's incredibly honest and it's good.

I think one of the nicest things that we created as a generation was just the fact that we could say, 'Hey, I don't like white people.'