Wait, wait, wait, wait. Don't try to write through it, to force it. Many do, but that won't work. Just wait, it will come.

I would solve a lot of literary problems just thinking about a character in the subway, where you can't do anything anyway.

When am I happy and when am I sad and what is the difference? What do I need to know to stay alive? What is true in the world?

What I'm doing ain't about hating White people. It's about loving us.

It is sheer good fortune to miss somebody long before they leave you.

The race thing is sort of a misnomer. It's just the human race, right? That's it. The rest of it, and racism, is socially constructed. Nobody is born racist, no one. What happens is other things that are usually based on power, money, feeling good about yourself, or bad about yourself, those things play into hating other people for whatever reason.

Black women have always been friends. I mean, if you didn't have each other you had nothing.