They belong to their readers now, which is a great thing–because the books are more powerful in the hands of my readers than they could ever be in my hands.

Some tourists think Amsterdam is a city of sin, but in truth it is a city of freedom. And in freedom, most people find sin.

Amsterdam is like the rings of a tree: It gets older as you get closer to the center.

I feel like crying, so I must be crying, but it's impossible to tell because I'm underwater.

...And in freedom, most people find sin.

So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.

A taste so profound and complex that it can't even be compared to other tastes, only to emotions. Cheesy waffles, I was thinking, tastes like love without the fear of love's dissolution.

My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.

The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.

All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm.

I would always love Alaska Young, my crooked neighbor, with all my crooked heart.

Tough topics are only tough for those who don't want to approach conversation, who don't like problematizing the status quo and nuancing the narrative.

To make mistakes is to live, because no one is born knowing everything.

If a law commands me to sin I will break it; if it calls me to suffer, I will let it take its course unresistingly.

The real world is not easy to live in. It is rough; it is slippery. Without the most clear-eyed adjustments we fall and get crushed. A man must stay sober; not always, but most of the time.

Turning on the light is easy if you know where the switch is.

I write about African women, that's really my topic. I have no shame or qualm in it because it's a very underrepresented topic, which is part of the reason I started to write.

Yet you would not drive a car with your mouth unless you are my mother-in-law.

To give one's heart is to give all.

How was I ever going to fight the blurring lines in our relationship when I enjoyed being with him so much?

What Moses brought down from Mt. Sinai were not the Ten Suggestions, they are Commandments. Are, not were.