The torture of being the unseen object, and the constantly observed subject.

The artist's role is to raise the consciousness of the people. To make them understand life, the world and themselves more completely. That's how I see it. Otherwise, I don't know why you do it.

A man is either free or he is not. There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom.

There is no justice in America, but it is the fight for justice that sustains you

My responsibility is to truth and beauty.

In America, black is a country.

I'd say I'm a revolutionary optimist. I believe that the good guys -the people- are going to win.

There is no depth to education without art.

Thought is more important than art....To revere art and have no understanding of the process that forces it into existence, is finally not even to understand what art is.

All thinking people oppose terrorism both domestic & international but one should not be used to cover the other

When I die, the consciousness I carry I will to black people. May they pick me apart and take the useful parts, the sweet meat of my feelings. And leave the bitter bullshit rotten white parts alone.

As women, we'd be exponentially lighter if we'd sort through some of our emotional clutter... We need to dispose of the crud that we no longer need. Excerpt from essay #3 "What's in my Purse?

Art is about the dynamics of the human experience.

When religion and politics ride in the same cart, the whirlwind follows.

Los Angeles has interested me for a long time. I was in Texas for five years, for the same reason. I wanted to photograph there.

The road to ignorance is paved with good editions. Only the illiterate can afford to buy good books now.

Art rests on a kind of religious sense, on a deep, steadfast earnestness; and on this account it unites so readily with religion.

I have been extremely lucky with reviewers and critics throughout my career.

You are not enclosed within your bodies, nor confined to houses or fields. That which is you dwells above the mountain and roves with the wind.

Life sometimes separates people so that they can realize how much they mean to each other.

Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done.