I was married a few times, and one of my husbands was jealous of me writing.
Those of us who submitted or surrendered our ideas and dreams and identities to the 'leaders' must take back our rights, our identities, our responsibilities.
It is a no-fail, incontrovertible reality: If you get, give. If you learn, teach. You can't do anything with that except do it.
I respect myself and insist upon it from everybody. And because I do it, I then respect everybody, too.
Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: 'I'm with you kid. Let's go.'
At one time, you could sit on the Rue de la Paix in Paris or at the Habima Theater in Tel Aviv or in Medina and you could see a person come in, black, white, it didn't matter. You said, 'That's an American' because there's a readiness to smile and to talk to people.
The more you know of your history, the more liberated you are.
In so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me.
I was born in St. Louis but lived there just for a few minutes in my life.
Life loves the liver of it.
I thank God I'm myself and for the life I'm given to live and for friends and lovers and beloveds, and I thank God for knowing that all those people have already paid for me.
I want to write so well that a person is 30 or 40 pages in a book of mine... before she realizes she's reading.
One of the wonderful things about Oprah: She teaches you to keep on stepping.
If I'm the people's poet, then I ought to be in people's hands - and, I hope, in their heart.
Hold those things that tell your history and protect them. During slavery, who was able to read or write or keep anything? The ability to have somebody to tell your story to is so important. It says: 'I was here. I may be sold tomorrow. But you know I was here.'
I'm very, very serious - I'm serious enough not to take myself too seriously. That means I can be completely wedded to the moment. But when I leave that moment, I want to be completely wedded to the next moment.
The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.
If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.
Nothing succeeds like success. Get a little success, and then just get a little more.
I'm not a writer who teaches. I'm a teacher who writes.
