It was my father who could do no wrong. So I didn't think of it as, oh, look, my father's a violent man.

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

Today is always here,' said Sethe. 'Tomorrow, never.

Black people's music is in a class by itself and always has been. There's nothing like it. The reason for that is because it was not tampered with by white people. It was not on the media. It was not anywhere except where black people were. And it is one of the art forms in which black people decided what is good in it. Nobody told them. What surfaced and what floated to the top, were the giants and the best.

There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.

Shallow believers prefer a shallow God.

Anger ... it's a paralyzing emotion ... you can't get anything done. People sort of think it's an interesting, passionate, and igniting feeling — I don't think it's any of that — it's helpless ... it's absence of control — and I need all of my skills, all of the control, all of my powers ... and anger doesn't provide any of that — I have no use for it whatsoever." [Interview with CBS radio host Don Swaim, September 15, 1987.]