The slave trade was globalism. Why people insist that globalism, after its hideous history, is a good thing, I do not know.

There's something to be said about a slightly plump person—you have just enough of too much.

The inevitable is no less a shock just because it is inevitable.

Express everything you like. No word can hurt you. None. No idea can hurt you. Not being able to express an idea or word will hurt you more. Like a bullet.

I was given a dictionary when I was seven, and I read it because I had nothing else to read. I read it the way you read a book.

People don't make changes because things are wonderful.

I would be lost without the feeling of antagonism that people have towards me. I write out of defiance.

People only say I’m angry because I’m black and I’m a woman.

A great piece of literature encompasses all that is and all that will be.

...yet a memory cannot be trusted, for so much of the experience of the past is determined by the experience of the present.

I'm so used to being misunderstood.

A problem-free life does not exist. If your life has no problems, you are not truly alive, and that’s a Big problem!

Extroverts communicate well with others, Introverts communicate well with themselves

The hand will often reveal more than the countenance.

I was lucky that my mother had a very well-adjusted perspective of the world, and never pressured me to do anything I didn't want to do.

I'm tenacious and no is not a good answer to give me.

I have an unfortunate compulsion. I really would rather not do it, as it is very nerve-wracking and un-fun. But when it works, there is nothing like it.

Life deals your hand and you play it.

Injustice experienced in the flesh, in deeply wounded flesh, is the stuff out of which change explodes.

There are some people that will not pick up a phone and call you, but if you knock on a door and talk to them, they'll talk back to you.

I don't think you go to a play to forget, or to a movie to be distracted. I think life generally is a distraction and that going to a movie is a way to get back, not go away.