Writing is the only way I know to demand justice from an uncaring universe.

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.

I really miss you and I still have that one picture of you, where your eyes had no point of view, but pictures say nothing and this one will stay in my minds room.

The air is full of flying kisses sent by the people who are watching you.

The last thing Pa and Big Ma wanted to hear was how we made a grand Negro spectacle of ourselves thirty thousand feet up in the air around all these white people.

Think black love, think universal love. Just think love.

[Mary] is the safest, easiest, shortest and most perfect way of approaching Jesus and will surrender themselves to her, body and soul, without reserve in order to belong entirely to Jesus.

I be goofy, kinda funny. Acting stupid but they love me.

I think that stereoscopic 3D will have to continue to develop. It's still quite archaic because of the glasses you have to wear.

I'm happy riding horses and getting out shooting my gun, things like that.

I think that the music we create together is one of a kind.

If I do an interview with [Holocaust survivor] Elie Wiesel, am I required as a journalist to find a Holocaust denier?