How exquisitely human was the wish for permanent happiness, and how thin human imagination became trying to achieve it.

If a Negro got legs he ought to use them. Sit down too long, somebody will figure out a way to tie them up.

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

If you can't count, they can cheat you. If you can't read, they can beat you.

Everything depends on knowing how much,” she said, and “Good is knowing when to stop.

Listen, baby, people do funny things. Specially us. The cards are stacked against us and just trying to stay in the game, stay alive and in the game, makes us do funny things. Things we can't help. Things that make us hurt one another. We don't even know why.

We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.