I have wanted everything as a writer and a woman, but most of all a world changed utterly by my revelations.

Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that if we are not beautiful to each other, we cannot know beauty in any form.

Change, when it comes, cracks everything open.

Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies.

Fiction is a piece of truth that turns lies to meaning.

Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is the way you can both hate and love something you are not sure you understand.

I did not begin with craft, I began with strong feelings and worked toward craft.

Class, race, sexuality, gender and all other categories by which we categorize and dismiss each other need to be excavated from the inside.

One of the strengths I derive from my class background is that I am accustomed to contempt.

The only magic we have is what we make in ourselves, the muscles we build up on the inside, the sense of belief we create from nothing.

I am the only one who can tell the story of my life and say what it means.

I hope people remember me for the kind of person that I am, not because of what I do.

Right now, I have some big dreams. But at the same time, if I get annoyed and harassed by the media, I'll just quit. I don't care. We're set for life. I have quite a temper.

My Toussaint [Louverture] film is in limbo. We still hope after all this time that we can find another way to get this film done.

In my mind, it is certainly much nicer to end on a high note rather than on a Stout Pig.

At university, I used to write silly little sketches and monologues, but never fiction.

Great leaders must be able to realize when something isn’t working-no matter how hard they’ve worked to make it succeed.

The age of sages is past; the age of specialists has come.

True joy is a serene and sober motion; and they are miserably out so that take laughing for rejoicing; the seat of it is within, and there is no cheerfulness like the resolutions of a brave mind.