Around them there was nothing but silence, as if all the world were holding its breath.

I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside us. And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are.

When you choose one way out of many, all the ways you don't take are snuffed out like candles, as if they'd never existed.

I have stolen ideas from every book I have ever read.

People are too complicated to have simple labels.

We shouldn't live as if [other worlds] mattered more than this life in this world, because where we are is always the most important place.

It might have been a new way for her heart to beat.

Tell them stories.

Be happy for no reason, like a child. If you are happy for a reason, you’re in trouble, because that reason can be taken from you.

The best trees produce the sweetest fruits.

We have become a nation of biblical illiterates.

Like all other Black revolutionaries, Amerika is trying to lynch me.

Let my children have music! Let them hear live music.

I'm a chick for sure.

And what they dare to dream of, date to do.

You don't compete with dollars, but you compete with ideas. Your only real borders are what you can imagine.

I spend my whole life trying to put up a front to prevent people from seeing certain parts of me. Weirdly, when I go to write, I feel like I have to expose it, almost compulsively.

There is no sin worse in life than being boring and nothing worse than letting other people tell you what to do.