Paris, true to its promise, had been a place of civilized indecencies, or uncivil decencies.

A good lover will do that, see something worthwhile in you that you never knew was there. And when there's something you don't like to see in yourself a good lover won't see it either.

I wanted everything. What could you not want when you are brown and Indian-looking in a society in which the white aesthetic is praised as acceptable?

Our goal should be to achieve joy

Poverty has its advantages. When you're that poor what would you have that anyone would want? Except your peace of mind. Your dignity. Your heart. The important things.

I've spent my whole life in Chicago being asked where am I from, so that I have a sense of displacement that also is very psychologically disorienting.

I'm obviously an American citizen. My parents are American citizens. But I'm not looked at as an American.

There are things coming from me that I felt I wanted to talk about. My search for my own blend of spirituality, my acknowledgement of my sexuality, my being the single mother of a young man.

What you perceive as "liberal" is my independence to choose what i do, with whom, and when. Moreover, it also means that i may choose not to do it, with anyone, ever.

To all the women and the men who ever loved me just a little.

For things to have value in man's world, they are given the role of commodities. Among man's oldest and most constant commodity is woman.

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.

It is better for you to read the Holy Bible, for your own enlightenment.

You know, sometimes it's nice to just have someone to blame, even if it has to be yourself, even if it doesn't make sense.

We must expect the discovery of many as yet unknown elements-for example, elements analogous to aluminum and silicon- whose atomic weight would be between 65 and 75.

I'm from the dirty depths of New Jersey.

It takes discipline to be a free spirit.

Be genuine. Just be yourself.

We have to permit go with the everyday living we had prepared so as to have the lifetime that's watching for us

Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts.

We are alienated, so alienated that the self must disguise itself as an extraterrestrial in order not to alarm us with the truly bizarre dimensions that it encompasses.