I merged those two words, black and feminist, because I was surrounded by black women who were very tough and and who always assumed they had to work and rear children and manage homes.

I have only to break into the tightness of a strawberry, and I see summer - its dust and lowering skies.

If you want to fly, you have to give up the things that weigh you down.

The function of freedom is to free someone else.

Don’t beg anybody for anything, especially love.

There is no such thing as race. None. There is just a human race - scientifically, anthropologically. Racism is a construct, a social construct... it has a social function, racism.

There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent.

All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.

Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.

Every father says the same thing: “Where's your mother?”

By the way, nothing I ever say, ever, has any truth behind it.

A song just doesn't come on. I've always had to tease it out, squeeze it out.

Because wine means the responsible part of the day is over.

Faith is not the supposition that something might be true, but the assurance that someone is there.

The Span of Life is too short to be trifled away in unconcerning and unprofitable Matters.

If you like somebody, they look better to you. This is why spouses in happy marriages tend to think that their husband or wife looks much better than anyone else thinks that they do.

If you became a comedian in the '80s, you had to work the circuit and make people laugh. Canned laughter is cheating.

When I think of Cool Britannia I think of old people dying of hypothermia.

The ability to speak exactly is intimately related to the ability to know exactly.