I don't think one parent can raise a child. I don't think two parents can raise a child. You really need the whole village.

It was a fine cry - loud and long - but it had no bottom and it had no top, just circles and circles of sorrow.

I really want some meaning. It used to be easy to toss it off. Now it's harder and harder. You have to navigate just to find something that has nourishment. It's the absence of nourishment. What do you do in place of nourishment? It's usually junk. Either it's junk food or junk clothes or junk ideas.

I know that my books are worthy, which is separate from me.

My world did not shrink because I was a black female writer. It just got bigger.

For a long time I was convinced that the conflict between Jewish people and black people in this country was a media event.

Sometimes Joyce is hilarious. I read Finnegans Wake after graduate school and I had the great good fortune of reading it without any help. I don't know if I read it right, but it was hilarious! I laughed constantly! I didn't know what was going on for whole blocks but it didn't matter because I wasn't going to be graded on it. I think the reason why everyone still has so much fun with Shakespeare is because he didn't have any literary critic. He was just doing it; and there were no reviews except for people throwing stuff on stage. He could just do it.