she kissed as if she, alone, could forge the signature of the sun

I used to have weird practices in crowded used-book stores in New York where I'd go in and just stomp my foot and see what fell from the shelf. And of course, because it's an unexpected encounter, there's always some magic that comes from it.

When I finally decide that I'm ready to get out of bed, it could be the sunlight, it could be the fact that I'm awake, and, OK, first of all, I wake up in the morning because I have to go to the bathroom.

We cannot continually barricade ourselves under some falsified idea of race, because our idea of blackness and race is simply reactionary. Africans didnt walk around Africa being black and proud, they walked around proud.

You can travel through literature, and you can expand your mind through literature. It's so cheap to buy that kind of ticket.

I think it's a mistake where rap music is these days. It doesn't seem to be able to look out of the ghetto and that's ultimately unfortunate, because it defines our limitations.

You change the beat up, you might change the way people dance to the music. If you change the way they move, maybe they'll think about it differently.