More than fear of loving bears or birds bigger than cows, I fear pathless nights. How, I wonder, can I find you in the dark?

Everywhere, everywhere, children are the scorned people of the earth.

Black people are victims of an enormous amount of violence. None of those things can take place without the complicity of the people who run the schools and the city.

It's a bad word, 'belong.' Especially when you put it with somebody you love ... You can't own a human being.

I really want some meaning. It used to be easy to toss it off. Now it's harder and harder. You have to navigate just to find something that has nourishment. It's the absence of nourishment. What do you do in place of nourishment? It's usually junk. Either it's junk food or junk clothes or junk ideas.

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

At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough.