“Don't ever think I fell for you, or fell over you. I didn't fall in love, I rose in it.”

“he didnt needs words or even want them because he knew how they could lie, could heat your blood and disappear.”

“I dont want to be a free nigger; I want to be a free man.Dont we all. Look. Be what you want--- white or black. Choose. But if you choose black, you got to act black, meaning draw your manhood upqu...”

“Not like the me was some tough somebody, or somebody she had put together for show. But like, like somebody she favored and could count on. A secret somebody you didn't have to feel sorry for or ha...”

“I laughed but before I could agree with the hairdressers that she was crazy, she said, 'What's the world for if you can't make it up the way you want it?'" 'The way I want it?'" 'Yeah. The way you ...”

“We women, me and you. Tell me something real. Dont just say Im grown and ought to know. I dont. Im fifty and I dont know nothing. What about it? Do I stay with him? I want to, I think. I want well,...”

“Be not discouraged black women of the world, but push forward, regardless of the lack of appreciation shown you.”

“My grandmother and my two aunts were an exhibition in resilience and resourcefulness and black womanhood. They rarely talked about the unfairness of the world with the words that I use now with my ...”

“Some problems we share as women, some we do not. You hear your children will grow up to join the patriarchy and testify against you, we fear our children will be dragged from a car and shot down in...”

“There are only two things: love, all sorts of love, with pretty girls, and the music of New Orleans or Duke Ellington. Everything else ought to go, because everything else is ugly. ”

“If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know.”

“Jazz is not just 'Well, man, this is what I feel like playing.' It's a very structured thing that comes down from a tradition and requires a lot of thought and study.”

“Write at the edges of the day.”