...a habit that had become one of those necessary things for the night... surely a body-friendly if not familiar-lying next to you. Someone whose touch is a reassurance, not an affront or a nuissance. Whose heavy breathing neither enrages nor discusts you, but amuses you like that of a cherished pet.

All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.

There is nothing of any consequence in education, in the economy, in city planning, in social policy that does not concern black people.

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

We never shape the world . . . the world shapes us.

In my mother's church, everybody read the Bible and it was mostly about music. My mother had the most beautiful voice I have ever heard in my life. She could sing anything - classical, jazz, blues, opera. And people came from long distances to that little church she went to - African Methodist Episcopal, the AME church she belonged to - just hear her.

Love just seems to make life not just livable, but a gallant, gallant event.