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

you got two feet, Sethe, not four." he said, and right then a forest sprang up between them; tactless and quiet.

Beginning 'Beloved' with numerals rather than spelled out numbers, it was my intention to give the house an identity separate from the street or even the city.

When I'm not creating or focusing on something I can imagine or invent, I think I go back over my life - I don't recommend this by the way - and you pick up, oh, what'd you do that for? Why didn't you understand this?

Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.

If a Negro got legs he ought to use them. Sit down too long, somebody will figure out a way to tie them up.

No one ever talks about the moment you found that you were white. Or the moment you found out you were black. That's a profound revelation. The minute you find that out, something happens. You have to renegotiate everything.