It is sheer good fortune to miss somebody long before they leave you.

There is no civilization that did not begin with art, Whether it was drawing a line in the sand, painting a cave or dancing.

Two parents can't raise a child any more than one. You need a whole community - everybody - to raise a child. And the little nuclear family is a paradigm that just doesn't work. It doesn't work for white people or for black people. Why are we hanging onto it, I don't know. It isolates people into little units - people need a larger unit.

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.

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

She had been looking all along for a friend, and it took her a while to discover that a lover was not a comrade and could never be - for a woman. And that no one would ever be that version of herself which she sought to reach out to and touch with an ungloved hand. There was only her own mood and whim, and if that was all there was, she decided to turn the naked hand toward it, discover it and let others become as intimate with their own selves as she was.

Liberation means you don't have to be silenced.