Being Black and poor is, I think, radically different from being anything else and poor. Poor, to most Blacks, is a state of mind. Those who accept it are poor; those who struggle are middle class.

It's not a ladder we're climbing, it's literature we're producing. . . . We cannot possibly leave it to history as a discipline nor to sociology nor science nor economics to tell the story of our people.

Hip-hop is a cultural expression - it's embracing.

We are better than we think and not yet what we want to be.

I think we're always in love. It's that simple. And it's important to remember that love doesn't have anything to do with sex. It's two different things. Being in love is the happy part. I was teasing my gentleman, "We know that you're in love when you cook for us." It's true. When men cook for you, they're in love.

When younger, I thought one of the particulars of being "Homo sapiens" was to communicate. I have not learned not to, though I am cautious when I try.

Writing is a conversation with reading; a dialogue with thinking. All conversations with older people contain repetition. Some of the ideas mean a lot to me, just interesting, so I both embrace and attack the ideas because I found them, well, delightful.