My friend and I have built a wall Between us thick and wide: The stones of it are laid in scorn And plastered high with pride.

I can't imagine why knowledge, truth and love should be so much of a secret

The impetus to grow and live intensely is so powerful in me I cannot resist it. I will work, I will love my husband, but I will fulfill myself.

Sometimes life takes you into a dark place where you feel it's impossible to breathe. You think you've been buried, but don't give up, because if truth be told, you've actually been planted.

Wondering why you survived don't help you survive

To conform within rational limits to a given style is no more servile than to pay one's taxes or to write according to the rule of grammar.

When I ask people to give, I can't be on television if they don't; I can't help people, if I don't - I mean, it takes money.

I have my own vocabulary. I love linguistics. That surprises people.

I don't like slugs and tentacles and calamari or anything. Actually, tentacles made me turn into a vegetarian in high school. I'm not anymore, but in high school, we were dissecting squid.

It comes down to this: black people were stripped of our identities when we were brought here, and it's been a quest since then to define who we are.

A good voice isn't so important. It's more important to sound really unique.