The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.

• You need a whole community to raise a child. I have raised two children, alone.
• Black literature is taught as sociology, as tolerance, not as a serious, rigorous art form.
• At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It is enough.
• There is nothing of any consequence in education, in the economy, in city planning, in social policy that does not concern black people.
• Women's rights is not only an abstraction, a cause it is also a personal affair. It is not only about us it is also about me and you. Just the two of us.
• I don't think a female running a house is a problem, a broken family. It's perceived as one because of the notion that a head is a man.
• She is a friend of mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It's good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind.
• I like marriage. The idea.
• She is a friend of mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me in all the right order. It's good, you know, when you got a woman who is a friend of your mind.
• I like marriage. The idea.