If you just sit there, and you're a writer, you're bound to write crap. A lot of American writing is crap. And a lot of American writers are professionals.

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.

Without trust in the possibilities for your life, where would you be? Where would any of us be? Our hopes for the future give us momentum.

Daring life, optimistic living.

The rancid odor mixed with the dust, death, and confusion as they awaited those who could clean up the mess and make death official.

I do feel more myself in America. I can regress there, and they have roller-coaster parks.

By love, harmony and beauty you must turn the whole of life into a single vision of divine glory.

I never intended for the Monster Ball to be a religious experience, it just became one.

If marriage were only bed, we could have made it.

I just keep thinking about putting up good numbers, playing hard and winning games.

Oh well, no matter what happens, there's always death.

It was the Lord's love and my recognition of His presence in my life that made me realize how important it was to give Him the glory and be there for Him.