I needed to be alone for whatever would happen. I knew that something would as certainly as if this were a last chapter.

Word spread because word will spread. Stories and secrets fight, stories win, shed new secrets, which new stories fight, and on.

It felt like being a child again, though it was not. Being a child is like nothing. It's only being. Later, when we think about it, we make it into youth.

Sometimes translation stops you understanding.

Being a child is like nothing. It's only being. Later, when we think about it, we make it into youth.

I'd never understood the injunction not to regret anything, couldn't see how that wasn't cowardice...

A promise fulfilled may be a classic moment, but prophecies mean anticlimax. How much more awesome was an unexpected salvation?

You'd love a bit of pomp: that way in later years you might invoke end-of-empire ghosts.

When it begins, where it goes how it ends...It all comes down to you.

Successful people work hard on the right things b/c working hard on the wrong things only makes one worn out while failing.

I tasted the bread and wine of equality.

I believe in God, I just give him more credit than being a single parent and an author.

It takes a lot when you are a professional fighter to stay in top condition. You have to sacrifice a lot and I did.

Testimony is an integral part of the Black religious tradition. It is the occasion where the believer stands before the community of faith in order to give account of the hope that is in him or her.

I lived in New Mexico until I was seventeen, and honestly I've been homesick ever since I left.

Lack of industry is an attitude.

I take a deep breath and sidestep my fear and begin speaking from the place where beauty and bravery meet--within the chambers of a quivering heart.