The language must be careful and must appear effortless. It must not sweat. It must suggest and be provocative at the same time.

No matter what all your teeth and wet fingers anticipated, there was no accounting for the way that simple joy could shake you.

Anything I have ever learned of any consequence, I have learned from Black people. I have never been bored by any Black person, ever.

Lonely was much better than alone.

Anger is better. There is a sense of being in anger. A reality and presence. An awareness of worth. It is a lovely surging.

When there is pain, there are no words. All pain is the same.

Unless carefree, mother love was a killer.