Long before I was a success, my parents made me feel like I could be one.

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.

You your own best thing, Sethe. You are.

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.

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

One has to work very carefully with what is in between the words. What is not said. Which is measure, which is rhythm and so on. So, it is what you don't write that frequently gives what you do write its power.

If you want to fly, you have to give up the things that weigh you down.