Black boys became criminalized. I was in constant dread for their lives, because they were targets everywhere. They still are.

If you can't count, they can cheat you. If you can't read, they can beat you.

Movements toward freedom and the self-respect that comes from something other than what people think is their most important feature.

Women's rights is not only an abstraction, a cause; it is also a personal affair. It is not only about us; it is also about me and you. Just the two of us.

[Obama is ] creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom . . . [He is] the man for this time.

There in the center of that silence was not eternity but the death of time and a loneliness so profound the word itself had no meaning.

Narrative is radical, creating us at the very moment it is being created.