I had come to feel that my mother's love for me was designed solely to make me into an echo of her; and I didn't know why, but I felt that I would rather be dead than become just an echo of someone.

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.

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

...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.

To make a long story short . . . there's nothing like having the boss walk in.

Everybody has a bad hair day, but us girls still like to be told we look nice even if we don't feel like we do.

The goal in life is to be solid, whereas the way that life works is totally fluid, so you can never actually achieve that goal.

(and from my thighs which shrug and pant a murdering rain leapingly reaches the upward singular deepest flower which she carries in a gesture of her hips)

Advice: Don’t wait until someone you have issues with — especially someone you’re related to — gets shot before you work it out.

Words are easy; lies as simple as parting your lips and breathing.

Lots of companies don't succeed over time. What do they fundamentally do wrong? They usually miss the future.

Liberty is often a heavy burden on a man. It involves the necessity for perpetual choice which is the kind of labor men have always dreaded.

Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave your friend to learn unpleasant things from his enemies; they are ready enough to tell them.

Because women and girls are not valued equally as human beings, they are treated as less than such. Female genital mutilation is one example of this that has to be stopped.