The bottom line is I'm writing to save the dead. I'm writing to save the people I have lost, some of whose bodies are still walking around.

Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is that if we are not beautiful to each other, we cannot know beauty in any form.

Change, when it comes, cracks everything open.

Things come apart so easily when they have been held together with lies.

Fiction is a piece of truth that turns lies to meaning.

Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is the way you can both hate and love something you are not sure you understand.

I did not begin with craft, I began with strong feelings and worked toward craft.

Class, race, sexuality, gender and all other categories by which we categorize and dismiss each other need to be excavated from the inside.

One of the strengths I derive from my class background is that I am accustomed to contempt.

The only magic we have is what we make in ourselves, the muscles we build up on the inside, the sense of belief we create from nothing.

I have wanted everything as a writer and a woman, but most of all a world changed utterly by my revelations.

We will spend the rest of the day inventing a kind of love that no longer exists in the world, a kind of love no army can pillage at the outposts, no rumor could bring to its knees like a traitor.

Sometimes I feel like I float in and out of different personalities.

We may be certain that whatever God has made prominent in His Word, He intended to be conspicuous in our lives.

Living in balance and purity is the highest good for you and the earth.

One of the things that EBONY [magazine] has done for years, decades is perspective. They knew what our audience was, they know who we are, so that's what I hope to do with this show.

One of the small consolations of old age, if you are lucky, can be at least a partial recovery of innocence.

The devil is God's ape!

I think America, unfortunately, collectively thinks of itself as the 'chosen people.' To my knowledge, there are no chosen people, we are all human beings.

Big fires flare up in a wind, but little ones are blown out unless they are carried in under cover.

I have a strong theory that all the dead people are looking down and laughing and smiling and saying "Oh look, they are so upset about the death thing."