It was not death or dying that frightened him, but the unexpectedness of both. In sorting it all out, he hit on the notion that if one day a year were devoted to it, everybody could get it out of the way and the rest of the year would be safe and free. In this manner he instituted National Suicide Day.

When they fall in love with a city, it is for forever and it is like forever.

When there is pain, there are no words. All pain is the same.

Let your face speak what's in your heart. When my kids walk in the room my face says I'm glad to see them.

Black women are the touchstone by which all that is human can be measured.

All of us--all who knew her--felt so wholesome after we cleaned ourselves on her. We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness. Her simplicity decorated us, her guilt sanctified us, her pain made us glow with health, her awkwardness made us think we had a sense of humor. Her inarticulateness made us believe we were eloquent. Her poverty kept us generous. Even her waking dreams we used--to silence our own nightmares.

Anger is better. There is a sense of being in anger. A reality and presence. An awareness of worth. It is a lovely surging.