Every day I get better at knowing that it is not a choice to be an activist; rather, it is the only way to hold on to the better parts of my human self. It is the only way I can live and laugh without guilt.

There are those nights where you are just so emotionally present that you crack yourself open. And it works. And on the nights when you don't have it in you because you're tired or you've got no voice, you still are able to do your job and tell the story that people have come to hear.

Hungry people make the best revolutionaries. Because when you're hungry, it's easy to get angry about things that aren't right.

I want to go down in history in a chapter marked miscellaneous because the writers could find no other way to categorize me In this world where classification is key I want to erase the straight lines So I can be me

Every day I get better at knowing that it is not a choice to be an activist; rather, it is the only way to hold on to the better parts of my human self. It is the only way I can live and laugh without guilt.

Women of color, particularly Black girls from economically challenged strati, we are told from the minute you start showing signs of being able to be impregnated: Don't get pregnant. You can't have sex because you might get pregnant. You can't wear short shorts because you might get pregnant. Don't talk to boys because you might get pregnant.

When you are doing seven shows a week, you have to take care of yourself. There are some moments when you cannot allow yourself to emotionally reenact the issue you're talking about or the experience that you're remembering. I mean that would kill you, you know. To experience a thing, a trauma, every single night, it would probably kill you emotionally.