I’ve never had anyone’s approval, so I’ve learned to live without it.

I learned that if I could read, I could cook. I surprised myself I like it.

The safe places could only be visited; they could only grant a momentary intuition of sanctuary. The moment always came when we had to return to our real life to face the wounds and grief indigenous to our homr by the river.

Here's what I love: when a great writer turns me into a Jew from Chicago, a lesbian out of South Carolina, or a black woman moving into a subway entrance in Harlem. Turn me into something else, writers of the world. Make me Muslim, heretic, hermaphrodite. Put me into a crusader's armor, a cardinal's vestments. Let me feel the pygmy's heartbeat, the queen's breast, the torturer's pleasure, the Nile's taste, or the nomad's thirst. Tell me everything that I must know. Hold nothing back.

Craziness attacks the softest eyes and hamstrings the gentlest flanks.

Man wonders but God decides When to kill the Prince of Tides.

The world of literature has everything in it, and it refuses to leave