I'm trying to earn a living in the way that is most enjoyable to me. I love the world of literature, and I hope to support myself in it.

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.

When the tram has arrived at the stop, you have to be there! Calculate where a good opportunity will stop and be there!

I give praise and honor to the Holy one of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob for the blessing of motherhood.

Don’t criticize them

If you're having fun, you wind up innovating.

One does not become a guru by accident.

Pessimists fear becoming the dupes of Hope. Optimists enjoy Hope's company, and consider being duped no great matter.

Self-congratulation pleases only the speaker.

I like the old wisdom--puns, riddles, spells, proverbs.

I am very cautious of people who are absolutely right, especially when they are vehemently so.

Government is emphatically a machine: to the discontented a taxing machine, to the contented a machine for securing property.