I sit in my new room and write everything down. My heart never stops talking.

And when you get down to it, Lily, that is the only purpose grand enough for a human life. Not just to love but to persist in love.

Knowing can be a curse on a person's life. I'd traded in a pack of lies for a pack of truth, and I didn't know which one was heavier. Which one took the most strength to carry around? It was a ridiculous question, though, because once you know the truth, you can't ever go back and pick up your suitcase of lies. Heavier or not, the truth is yours now.

Have you ever written a letter you knew you could never mail but you needed to write it anyway?

You've got to figure out which end of the needle you're gon' be, the one that's fastened to the thread or the end that pierces the cloth.

I said, "If I was a Negro girl-" He placed his fingers across my lips so I tasted his saltiness. "We can't think of changing our skin," he said. "Change the world-that's how we gotta think."

My ultimate authority is the divine voice in my own soul. Period.