Body and soul, Black America reveals the extreme questions of contemporary life, questions of freedom and identity: How can I be who I am?

Bisexuality means I am free and I am as likely to want to love a woman as I am likely to want to love a man, and what about that? Isn't that what freedom implies?

To tell the truth is to become beautiful, to begin to love yourself, value yourself. And that's political, in its most profound way.

Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.

Like a lot of Black women, I have always had to invent the power my freedom requires.

We do not deride the fears of prospering white America. A nation of violence and private property has every reason to dread the violated and the deprived.

Maybe the purpose of being here, wherever we are, is to increase the durability and occasions of love among and between peoples.

Overall, white men run America. From nuclear armaments to the filth and jeopardy of New York City subways to the cruel mismanagement of health care, is there anything to boast about?

To tell the truth is to become beautiful.

If you are free, you are not predictable and you are not controllable.

In the process of telling the truth about what you feel or what you see, each of us has to get in touch with himself or herself in a really deep, serious way.

Show me somebody who is always smiling, always cheerful, always optimistic, and I will show you somebody who hasn't the faintest idea what the heck is really going on.

His leaving had been like snipping off the end of a rope - leaving two unraveling strands.

Only the weak finds comfort in making excuses and pointing finger.

Liberals want the government to be your Mommy. Conservatives want government to be your Daddy. Libertarians want it to treat you like an adult.

Cultivate the root; the leaves and branches will take care of themselves.

I have learned, as I wrote, that history must be discovered, not declared. It's an admission that one grows in life.

Removal of an organ is difficult and dangerous. There have been several deaths of healthy donors. I think myself, I would be hesitant to participate as a liver donor. It's a very tricky operation.

Tell the truth and make it rhyme

I had always thought of Paradise / In form and image as a library.

We are all slaves of our own actions. Why be angry with anyone else?