Racial prejudice rotted one's faculties, he said.

see chains on another person and be glad they are not your own--such was the good fortune permitted colored people, defined by how much worse it could be at any moment.

Men start off good and then the world makes them mean. The world is mean from the start and gets meaner every day. It uses you up until you only dream of death.

Now that she had run away and seen a bit of the country, Cora wasn't sure the document described anything real at all. America was a ghost in the darkness, like her.

Stolen bodies working stolen land. It was an engine that did not stop, its hungry boiler fed with blood.

Resentment was the hinge of her personality.

That is how the European tribes operate, she said, If they can't control it, they destroy it.

Slavery is a sin when whites were put to the yoke, but not the African. All men are created equal, unless we decide you are not a man.

From the trunk of their scheme, choices and decisions sprouted like branches and shoots.

What a world it is, Cora thought, that makes a living prison into your only haven. Was she out of bondage or in its web: how to describe the status of a runaway?

White man trying to kill you slow every day, and sometimes trying to kill you fast. Why make it easy for him? That was one kind of work you could say no to.

Humor is the honey in my tea.

You can't be scared of death. When that time comes, it comes.

He was bare chested and in good trim. I said that just looking at him I knew there would always be an England

Just because it's a dream doesn't mean it's a lie.

I'm laughing because I know the secret of life. And the secret of life is that I have validated my existence. I know that I am worth more than my house, my bank account, or any physical thing.

There was a while when I was feeling like, 'Damn, if I'd just been born black, I would not have to go through all this'.

I think I'm Swedish because I like to live here on this island. You can't imagine the loneliness and isolation in this country. In that way, I'm very Swedish - I don't dislike to be alone.

To this day, The Duke and I remains particularly close to my heart; I felt it was the novel in which my writing took a huge leap forward.

As a world leader who refused to accept injustice, Nelson Mandela's courage helped change our entire world

Not that it was Twiggy's fault, but the ubiquity of her image created a sense in young women that to be stylish meant to be skinny, flat-chested with an ingenue face and straight hair.