There is no such thing as race. None. There is just a human race - scientifically, anthropologically. Racism is a construct, a social construct... it has a social function, racism.

No gasp at a miracle that is truly miraculous because the magic lies in the fact that you knew it was there for you all along.

Everything depends on knowing how much,” she said, and “Good is knowing when to stop.

We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.

Your life is already artful-waiting, just waiting, for you to make it art.

True the Black woman did the housework, the drudgery; true, she reared the children, often alone, but she did all of that while occupying a place on the job market, a place her mate could not get or which his pride would not let him accept.And she had nothing to fall back on: not maleness, not whiteness, not ladyhood, not anything. And out of the profound desolation of her reality she may very well have invented herself.

I am a moralist. I worry.