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

Language can never 'pin down' slavery, genocide, war. Nor should it yearn for the arrogance to be able to do so. Its force, its felicity, is in its reach toward the ineffable.

They encouraged you to put some of your weight in their hands and soon as you felt how light and lovely it was, they studied your scars and tribulations.

The body is ready to have babies. Nature wants it done then, when the body can handle it, not after 40, when the income can handle it.

Women's rights is not only an abstraction, a cause; it is also a personal affair. It is not only about us; it is also about me and you. Just the two of us.

I'm always annoyed about why black people have to bear the brunt of everybody else's contempt. If we are not totally understanding and smiling, suddenly we're demons.

I write the way women have babies. You don't know it's going to be like that. If you did, there's no way you would go through with it.