I have the wonderful pleasure of finishing the book and closing it. And I don't read them later.

Write about something you don't know. And don't be scared, ever.

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

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

All of us--all who knew her--felt so wholesome after we cleaned ourselves on her. We were so beautiful when we stood astride her ugliness. Her simplicity decorated us, her guilt sanctified us, her pain made us glow with health, her awkwardness made us think we had a sense of humor. Her inarticulateness made us believe we were eloquent. Her poverty kept us generous. Even her waking dreams we used--to silence our own nightmares.

I know it's trash: just another story made up to scare wicked females and correct unruly children. But it's all I have. I know I need something else. Something better. Like a story that shows how brazen women can take a good man down. I can hum to that.

Race is the least reliable information you can have about someone. It's real information, but it tells you next to nothing.