From my point of view, which is that of a storyteller, I see your life as something artful, waiting, just waiting and ready for you to make it art.

Would it be all right? Would it be all right to go ahead and feel? Go ahead and count on something?

...black women write differently from white women. This is the most marked difference of all those combinations of black and white, male and female. It's not so much that women write differently from men, but that black women write differently from white women. Black men don't write very differently from white men.

I want to discourage you from choosing anything or making any decision simply because it is safe. Things of value seldom are

Evil is so seductive. It needs to grind you up and make you its slave.

What do you say? There really are no words for that. There really aren't. Somebody tries to say, 'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.' People say that to me. There's no language for it. Sorry doesn't do it. I think you should just hug people and mop their floor or something.

I wanted to separate color from race. Distinguishing color - light, black, in-between - as the marker for race is really an error.