Language alone protects us from the scariness of things with no names. Language alone is meditation.

Black literature is taught as sociology, as tolerance, not as a serious, rigorous art form.

Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But it's not. Places, places are still there. If a house burns down, it's gone, but the place--the picture of it--stays, and not just in my remory, but out there, in the world. What I remember is a picture floating around out there outside my head. I mean, even if I don't think if, even if I die, the picture of what I did, or knew, or saw is still out there. Right in the place where it happened.

One of my kids was born in 1968. There were going to be political difficulties, but they were never going to have that level of hatred and contempt that my brothers and my sister and myself were exposed to.

Sexist language, racist language, theistic language - all are typical of the policing languages of mastery, and cannot, do not, permit new knowledge or encourage the mutual exchange of ideas.

The screams of a hurt woman were indistinguishable from everyday traffic.

I have the wonderful pleasure of finishing the book and closing it. And I don't read them later.