It's very funny, American society: White culture can do all sorts of things and get away with it, but the minute a black person does it, it's interpreted in some way.

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.

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

I'm so used to being misunderstood.

There is neither a Heaven nor a Hell. Life after Death is an oxymoron. Life is just another word for existence, and Death is just another word for non-existence.

Be weary of the selfish givers, those who do something for a hidden fee.

It dawned on me that no person is as poetically homesick as someone who has come to New York for the first time and glimpsed a small vestige of her home state.

Girls have got balls. They're just a little higher up, that's all.

Failure is a word I don't accept.

The action movie, the thriller and the drama all have safety nets under them. But not the horror film. The horror film can sink to an abyss far darker than the imagination can ever reach.

Oaths and curses are a proof of a most heroic courage, at least in appearance, which answers the same end.

I don't have any system. I dictate a lot, through a machine, and I also have a secretary. But I used to type just like everybody else.

I have always regarded Mr. Bean as a timeless, ageless character, and I would rather he be remembered as a character mostly in his 30s and 40s.

I apologize for Pam. I accidentally hit her in the head with a baseball when we were in fifth grade and knocked her out cold. She’s never been right since. (Tory)