The formula for creative writing in high school or college is write what you know.

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.

A lot of black people believe that Jews in this country have become white. They behave like white people rather than Jewish people.

If happiness is anticipation with certainty, we were happy.

I merged those two words, black and feminist, because I was surrounded by black women who were very tough and and who always assumed they had to work and rear children and manage homes.

One of the monstrous things that slavery in this country caused was the breakup of families. I mean, physical labor, horrible; beatings, horrible; lynching death, all of that, horrible. But the living life of a parent who, A, has no control over what happens to your children, none. They don't belong to you. You may not even nurse them. They may be shipped off somewhere, as in "Beloved" the mother was, to be nursed by somebody who was not able to work in the fields and was a wet nurse.

Access to knowledge is the superb, the supreme act of truly great civilizations. Of all the institutions that purport to do this, free libraries stand virtually alone in accomplishing this mission. No committee decides who may enter, no crisis of body or spirit must accompany the entrant. No tuition is charged, no oath sworn, no visa demanded. Of the monuments humans build for themselves, very few say - touch me, use me, my hush is not indifference, my space is not barrier. If I inspire awe, it is because I am in awe of you and the possibilities that dwell in you.