A great piece of literature encompasses all that is and all that will be.

There's something to be said about a slightly plump person—you have just enough of too much.

The inevitable is no less a shock just because it is inevitable.

Express everything you like. No word can hurt you. None. No idea can hurt you. Not being able to express an idea or word will hurt you more. Like a bullet.

I was given a dictionary when I was seven, and I read it because I had nothing else to read. I read it the way you read a book.

People don't make changes because things are wonderful.

I would be lost without the feeling of antagonism that people have towards me. I write out of defiance.

People only say I’m angry because I’m black and I’m a woman.

...yet a memory cannot be trusted, for so much of the experience of the past is determined by the experience of the present.

I'm so used to being misunderstood.

When I'm writing, I think about the garden, and when I'm in the garden I think about writing. I do a lot of writing by putting something in the ground.

I am a part of all I have read.

What is music anyway? It's a form of communication, and that's why I play the kind of music that I think - that I hope - can communicate with people.

We say that a sentence is factually significant to any given person, if, and only if, he knows how to verify the proposition which it purports to express.

I believe you should pray as hard on those up days as you do on the down days.

The weak sinews become strong by their conflict with difficulties.

What is loved is a hit. What is a hit is loved.

I'm used to performing under pressure, but that's playing football.

I love to hear my Lord spoken of, and wherever I have seen the print of His shoe in the earth, there have I coveted to put mine also.

Wisdom and love have nothing to do with each other. Wisdom is staying alive, survival. You're wise if you don't stick your finger in the light plug. Love - you'll stick your finger in anything.

A teacher enlarges people in all sorts of ways besides just his subject matter.