Betrayal of any kind is hard, but betrayal by one's religion is excruciating. It makes you want to rage and weep.

I vividly remember the summer of 1964 with its voter registration drives, boiling racial tensions, and the erupting awareness of the cruelty of racism. I was never the same after that summer.

I eventually found that the soul is more than an immortal commodity to win and save. It is the repository of the inner divine, the truest part of us.

I never know how to give advice to a writer because there's so much you could say, and it's hard to translate your own experience. But of course, I always try. The main thing that I usually end up saying is to read a lot. To read a great deal and to learn from that.

People can start out one way, and by the time life gets through with them they end up completely different.

I worried so much about how I looked and whether I was doing things right, I felt half the time I was impersonating a girl instead of really being one.

Into every life a little rain must fall.