I write out of defiance.

A tourist is an ugly human being.

I'm so used to being misunderstood.

I've never let the criticism deter me.

Every time I end a book, I look down at myself.

Like father like son, like mother like daughter!

I've never gotten used to winter and never will.

Tomorrow exists even though I may not exist in it.

What I don't write is as important as what I write.

I suppose you could say I love outlaw American culture.

People don't make changes because things are wonderful.

There's a difference between bravery and rash stupidity.

when people say you're charming you are in deep trouble.

Habit gives endurance, and fatigue is the best night cap.

Who you are is a mystery no one can answer, not even you.

My writing has always been met with derision or dismissal.

People only say I’m angry because I’m black and I’m a woman.

Writing is not a profession. It's a calling. It's almost holy.

I like cooking, but I think someone else ought to do the dishes.

The inevitable is no less a shock just because it is inevitable.

One's obligation every day, is to choose to follow the nobler one.

I wish that I could love someone so much that I would die from it.

I am not aware of anything below my neck. I live completely in my head.

When I write a book, I hope to be beyond mortal by the time I'm finished.

Life has a truth to it, and it's complicated - it's love and it's hatred.

On their way to freedom, some people find riches, some people find death.

A great piece of literature encompasses all that is and all that will be.

The thing we call romance is a diversion from something truer, which is life.

My disappointments stand up and grow ever taller. They will not be lost to me.

It was hollow, my triumph, I could feel that, but I held on to it just the same.

The shadow of my mother danced around the room to a tune that my own shadow sang.

In my writing I'm trying to explore the violations people commit upon each other.

Time is the element that controls the consciousness, the very being of the people.

Why is a picture of something real eventually more exciting than the thing itself?

I would never never read a work of fiction and want to know about the person's life.

I used to want to be a backup singer. Not a lead singer, because I really can't sing.

I've come to see that I'm saying something that people generally do not want to hear.

I didn't know it was possible to be successful as a writer, so I wasn't afraid to fail.

I'm sometimes afraid I'll cross a line and it'll be difficult to come back, say, to dinner.

There's something to be said about a slightly plump person—you have just enough of too much.

The history of race relations in America is very different than something like the Holocaust.

I'll read anything. In fact, I'll read while I'm doing other things, which is not a good idea.

I like melancholy. I like to pretend that I'm alone in the world and I'm just sort of abandoned.

I wouldn't mind being labeled as "angry," if it wasn't used once again to denigrate and belittle.

It is sad that unless you are born a god, your life,from its very beginning, is a mystery to you.

The garden has taught me to live, to appreciate the times when things are fallow and when they're not.

I would be lost without the feeling of antagonism that people have towards me. I write out of defiance.

When I start to write something, I suppose I want it to change me, to make me into something not myself.

None of us seem to think that we should draw a line under what would be a satisfactory amount of wealth.

One of the things reading does, it makes your loneliness manageable if you are an essentially lonely person.

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