(M)aybe we too busy being flowers or fairies or strawberries instead of something honest and worthy of respect . . . you know . . . like being people.

My responsibility to myself, my neighbors, my family and the human family is to try to tell the truth.

People have to be given permission to write, and they have to be given space to breathe and stumble. They have to be given time to develop and to reveal what they can do.

One monkey don't stop no show. Not one, not six. The struggle continues.

I try to live [the Golden Rule] and I certainly expect it of some particular others. But I'll be damned if I want most folk out there to do unto me what they do unto themselves.

It's a dismally lonely business, writing.

Writing is a legitimate way, an important way, to participate in the empowerment of the community that names me.