We're all surrounded by what I call faux language, fake language of commerce, of news media.

She learned the intricacy of loneliness: the horror of color, the roar of soundlessness and the menace of familiar objects lying still.

I know what every colored woman in this country is doing... Dying. Just like me. But the difference is they dying like a stump. Me, I’m going down like one of those redwoods. I sure did live in this world.

The pieces I am, she gather them and gave them back to me in all the right order.

It's bliss when you give up all that stuff that separates you from other human beings. It's hard, but you break down all that stuff.

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.

Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another - physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion.