you know a person is having a severe personality crisis if you see a high school class ring on a finger beyond the first semester in college. Male or female. It's a big sign saying nothing has mattered to my life since senior year.

You must be unintimidated by your own thoughts because if you write with someone looking over you shoulder, you'll never write.

I am of the generation of segregation. Black Lives Matter is post. I said today, and I will say all the time, "If Nina [Simone] were here, she'd have her Black Lives Matter [T-shirt] on." I think they're great kids. They don't need me or anybody else to tell them what to do.

There're two people in the world that are not likeable: a master and a slave.

Poets can tell the truth as they see it. It’s the author’s story, the author’s voice.

I am so hip even my errors are correct

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.