Although I was simply what today would be called a "mule" - the bottom of the food chain in the drug biz - the federal system treated me from beginning to end like a major criminal, and I still don't know why, other than that in those days, 6.5 ounces of heroin was a big load. Ludicrous by today's standards, when coke, heroin, and weed are shipped across the border by the ton.

I'm actually a lowlife. On the street at fifteen and also in jail for the first time at that age, and off and on the street until my mid-twenties.

One of the principle things life has taught me is that we always have a choice. When we say we "can't," we usually mean we're just not willing to pay the price.

My published works are concrete evidence that I exist.

I couldn't stand living in a society that admires the emperor's new clothes, when I see so clearly that he is naked.

The fact that educated white women automatically assume that we have similar backgrounds annoys me. We don't. I feel like I'm in a certain kind of drag.

I was already a wreck when I went in, and prison nearly destroyed what little was left of me. I was worse when I came out than I was when I went in, and was not positively changed in any way.