Terry McMillan Quotes

I'm the only one who can stop me.. I'm the one who's been sitting at the stoplight all these years, waiting for the light to turn green.

Writing is my shelter. I don't hide behind the words; I use them to dig inside my heart to find the truth.

If you jump to conclusions, you make terrible landings.

Pay attention to the things that agitate you. It will tell you a lot about yourself.

It's amazing how we can make ourselves believe what we want to.

People like to run their mouths.

Writing is the only place I can be myself and not feel judged.

Few writers are willing to admit writing is autobiographical.

As a writer, you get to bring attention to something without preaching. I don't believe in being didactic. So if you dramatize something, you automatically bring attention to it if people read it.

I'm more interested in interpersonal relationships - between lovers families, siblings. That's why I write about how we treat each other.

Folks want to glow, to leave their worries and dead skin behind.

I would be content being a housewife if I could find the kind of man who wouldn't treat me like one.

don't sabotage your own greatness by succumbing to failure!

It goes without saying that your friends are usually the first to discuss your personal business behind your back.

Good parents have children who do terrible things and vice-versa.

happiness aint got no Ph.D. or no certain amount of zeroes behind it!

It should be obvious that I wasn't no honor roll student in high school. My favorite class was boys.

Write from your heart, and God will take care of the rest.

I have a big mouth, and over the years, as the eldest of five, I have had a tendency to speak when no one really cared.

life is like a jigsaw puzzle, you have to see the whole picture, then put it together piece by piece!

There is a price for popularity. Critics look for your weaknesses, your flaws, anything that makes the work seem like a fluke and not seem worthy of all the attention it's getting.

You know, one of my fears about living alone so long is that you get used to doing everything your own way.

Can't nothing make your life work if you ain't the architect.

I also discovered that you can get used to a man , much like you do a household pet!

I just believe that young people need to be able to learn how to write in their own voice. Just like a musician, you pride yourself on having your own distinct sound.

My stories are character driven.

People need to be re - sometimes we need to reinvent ourselves and then get reacquainted with our better selves.

I'm not an angry woman. I'm not bitter.

People always have something to say about what you do and how you do it.

I take what people feel and think, especially when it's different from, very seriously, and I find it liberating.

Wherever there's a prison, for the most part, especially where there's Black people, it's overcrowded. I don't know who really gets out.

I was tired of chasing ghosts, hollow men who were outside my comfort zone, men who had nothing to give me except a rush. It was all I asked for, and all I ever got.

You've been killing me inside and I don't want to die like this.

Why is it that if you happen to be black and over six feet tall, everybody thinks you supposed to play basketball or football?

I used to get a lot of letters from prisoners. It used to get on my nerves. Especially family members. Everybody's innocent.

Sometimes I cheat and buy things I used to make from scratch and just doctor them up.

I've got tons of irreplaceable information inside the soul of this computer.

I can't stand that - those women in 'Waiting to Exhale' now. I can't stand them. But that's because I'm 53 and not 33. But what they were experiencing at 33, I identified with it.

It's sad to think that we've gotten to this, that we actually have to think about how to go about finding a man. But what's even sadder is that some men make you feel guilty for looking.

Now, I've been known to be attractive on special occasions, and I do my best to project as much beauty as I can muster from deep inside, though I often fail.

I like doing the readings and the autographing, but the interviewing gets a little tedious because you get asked the same questions every day and sometimes three or four times a day.

I don't let negative criticism, for the most part, bother me.

The best rush in the world is getting something at 80 percent off.

I try to create characters that I am fascinated by on some level or intrigued by or can't stand.

Don't worry about how pretty (the story) sounds, how lilting it is, and the imagery, and the metaphor, all that. Most readers don't care. It's the people in your book that matter.

What I do know is sometimes we love the wrong people and sometimes we marry them.

It's not that marriage itself is bad; it's the people we marry who give it a bad name.

I don't trust white critics' judgment about most things that deal with black life, particularly when a black person is the creator.

My mama taught me that anything worth doing in life should be a little scary.

I'd crack up without my music. It's the best company you can have, really. It don't say 'no' or 'maybe,' or ask no questions.