...fear and pain are immediate, and that, when they're gone, we're left with the concept, but not the true memory--why else...would anyone give birth more than once?

In my earliest memory, my grandfather is bald as a stone and he takes me to see the tigers.

In the end, all you want is someone to long for you when it comes time to put you in the ground.

No matter how grave the secret, how imperative absolute silence, someone would always feel the urge to confess, and an unleashed secret is a terrible force.

Believe me, Doctor, if your life ends in suddenness you will be glad it did, and if it does not you will wish it had. You will want suddenness, Doctor.

The forty days of the soul begin on the morning after death.

It's a sad thing to see, because as far as I know, this man Gavo had done nothing to deserve being shot in the back of the head at his own funeral. Twice.

You're my phantom limb, Mouse. I keep looking for you. I forget. I feel stupid, Mouse. Haunt me, find me, come back from wherever you are. Be with me.

Repent heart rekindles the spirit.

You never stop learning. If you have a teacher, you never stop being a student.

Wisdom and goodness are twin-born, one heart must hold both sisters, never seen apart.

A dialogue among civilizations can be seen as a dialogue between the individual and the universal.

I am entirely certain that twenty years from now we will look back at education as it is practiced in most schools today and wonder that we could have tolerated anything so primitive.

People can only be free if they are truly educated.

Libido, fascination, too much oral defecation. White trash get down on your knees, time for cake and sodomy.

I always knew I'd be a millionaire by age thirty-two. In fact, I am going to be the richest black woman in America.