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

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.

I'm so used to being misunderstood.

When I'm writing, I think about the garden, and when I'm in the garden I think about writing. I do a lot of writing by putting something in the ground.

But it's funny how the memory works and how sometimes we just belive whatever we want.

Men? One never knows where to find them. The wind blows them away. They have no roots, and that makes their life very difficult.

My love for you is everywhere. Though we're a thousand miles apart, I love you and you know it. I love you because you're different from the girls I've met before.

It's not an easy thing to be let go.

Music is the application of sounds to the canvas of silence.

You know, I'm sick and tired of people pointing rifles at me.

It's only a few nutcases who do art for themselves, like Van Gogh.

A reporter once asked me if I ever cried. I wonder if people think I'm just as hard as a rock and have no emotions at all.

It's easy to solve a problem that everyone sees, but it's hard to solve a problem that almost no one sees.

Suicide to them is an act of selfishness. Someone who is truly selfless does not think of himself often enough to desire death.