It's a bad word, 'belong.' Especially when you put it with somebody you love ... You can't own a human being.

Certain seeds it will not nurture, certain fruit it will not bear and when the land kills of its own volition, we acquiesce and say the victim had no right to live

Like friendship, hatred needed more than physical intimacy; it wanted creativity and hard work to sustain itself

Literature, it seems to me, is wisdom.

When am I happy and when am I sad and what is the difference? What do I need to know to stay alive? What is true in the world?

Race is the least reliable information you can have about someone. It's real information, but it tells you next to nothing.

There is an incredible amount of magic and feistiness in black men that nobody has been able to wipe out. But everybody has tried.