The ball of dark fur pressed itself into my chest, and I wished she was my kitten, and knew that she was not.

I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.

I went away in my head, into a book. That was where I went whenever real life was too hard or too inflexible.

A story only matters, I suspect, to the extent that the people in the story change.

But there was a kitten on my pillow, and it was purring in my face and vibrating gently with every purr, and, very soon, I slept.

Books were safer than other people anyway.

Nobody looks like what they really are on the inside. You don’t. I don’t. People are much more complicated than that. It’s true of everybody.

I make art, sometimes I make true art, and sometimes it fills the empty places in my life. Some of them. Not all.

Words save our lives, sometimes.

You get on with your own life. Lettie gave it to you. You just have to grow up and try and be worth it.

They were not my friends, after all. They were just the people I went to school with.

What great deed can parent do, than to pray for their children.

to understand pretending, " Ombric was fond of saying, "is to conquer all barriers of time and space.

Together we can remind them there are no excuses to sit back and watch the cycle of extreme poverty continue.

The white fathers told us: I think, therefore I am. The black goddess within each of us - the poet - whispers in our dreams: I feel, therefore I can be free.

Who are those people by whom you wish to be admired? Are they not these whom you are in the habit of saying that they are mad? What then? Do you wish to be admired by the mad?

It isn't the American white man who is a racist, but it's the American political, economic and social atmosphere that automatically nourishes a racist psychology in the white man.

Please Mr. Trump: Say what you mean. Mean what you say.

I have so much respect for my opponents; many of them watched the races as little children and were supporting me!

Debt is the fatal disease of republics, the first thing and the mightiest to undermine governments and corrupt the people.

Divorce is probably as painful as death.