A little black girl yearns for the blue eyes of a little white girl, and the horror at the heart of her yearning is exceeded only by the evil of fulfillment

Birth, life, and death― each took place on the hidden side of a leaf.

When you think of sexual liberation, which women wanted to have or not have children, which is the choice, not a command, and other kinds of things they wanted in their relationships with their husbands, or partners or what have you, became for subsequent generations some license that they themselves feel, that is absolutely demeaning and mean younger and younger and younger.

When a child walks in the room, your child or anybody else’s child, do your eyes light up? That’s what they’re looking for.

You need a whole community to raise a child. I have raised two children, alone.

The Administration of the United States is such dread I almost feel paralyzed.

Risky, thought Paul D, very risky. For a used-to-be-slave woman to love anything that much was dangerous, especially if it was her children she had settled on to love. The best thing, he knew, was to love just a little bit, so when they broke its back, or shoved it in a croaker sack, well, maybe you'd have a little love left over for the next one.