“If you don't love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else?”

“When you become the image of your own imagination, it's the most powerful thing you could ever do.”

“All sins are forgiven once you start making a lot of money.”

“Look at me--a big old black man under all of this makeup, and if I can look beautiful, so can you.”

“In the great tradition of Paris Is Burning, bring out your library cards! Because reading is what? Fundamental!”

“Ego loves identity. Drag mocks identity. Ego hates drag.”

“Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together and motivating them, the teacher is the most important.”

“I'm not a teacher: only a fellow traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead - ahead of myself as well as you.”

“I taught you everything you know. But I didn't teach you everything I know.”

“No black woman writer in this culture can write "too much". Indeed, no woman writer can write "too much"...No woman has ever written enough.”

“When you reduce a woman to writing, she makes you think of a thousand other women”

“I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”

“Saturday night is perfect for writers because other people have "plans.”

“Night is certainly more novel and less profane than day.”

“I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”