Definitions belong to the definer, not the defined.

I thought the whole world was like Lorain.

A little black girl yearns for the blue eyes of a little white girl, and the horror at the heart of her yearning is exceeded only by the evil of fulfillment

No matter what all your teeth and wet fingers anticipated, there was no accounting for the way that simple joy could shake you.

guileless and without vanity,we were still in love with ourselves then. We felt comfortable in our own skins, enjoyed the news that our senses released to us, admired our dirt, cultivated our scars, and could not comprehend this unworthiness.

I don't think a female running a house is a problem, a broken family. It's perceived as one because of the notion that a head is a man.

Listen up. Let me tell you something. A man ain’t a goddamn ax. Chopping, hacking, busting every goddamn minute of the day. Things get to him. Things he can’t chop down because they’re inside.