She would not exchange her solitude for anything. Never again to be forced to move to the rhythms of others.

Not everybody feels religion the same way. Some it's in their mouth, but some it's like a hope in their blood, their bones.

Compared to men writers of like distinction and years of life, few women writers have had lives of unbroken productivity, or leave behind a 'body of work.' Early beginnings, then silence; or clogged late ones (foreground silences); long periods between books (hidden silences); characterize most of us.

There are worse words than cuss-words, there are words that hurt.

Think about all that we've lost that has been said orally because nobody was taking it down. I feel very fortunate to live in a time where we have so many different voices. We have a much richer literature than we've ever had, and we can know America so much better.

She would not exchange her solitude for anything. Never again to be forced to move to the rhythms of others.

I very much dislike the word "race," and I never use it. I use the word "racist." Race is not a fact. There is only one race: human. Skin color is less than 2 percent of the DNA.