The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.

To get to a place where you could love anything you chose--not to need permission for desire--well now _that_ was freedom.

What I think the political correctness debate is really about is the power to be able to define. The definers want the power to name. And the defined are now taking that power away from them.

Anything dead coming back to life hurts.

It had been the longest time since she had had a rib-scraping laugh. She had forgotten how deep and down it could be. So different from the miscellaneous giggles and smiles she had learned to be content with these past few years.

She left me the way people leave a hotel room. A hotel room is a place to be when you are doing something else. Of itself it is of no consequence to one's major scheme. A hotel room is convenient. But its convenience is limited to the time you need it while you are in that particular town on that particular business; you hope it is comfortable, but prefer, rather, that it be anoymous. It is not, after all, where you live.

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