“Women have been trained in our culture and society to ask for what we want instead of taking what we want. We've been really indoctrinated with this culture of permission. But that time has passed.”

“A black woman making art is a disruptive act. Every story that I tell as a woman is a political act, even if I want to tell a 'silly love story.' The fact it exists through my gaze is radical.”

“There was a time when I was knocking on doors and concerned with being recognized in dominant culture. I've found a space where the terrain is different, where I'm embraced by people like me, and w...”

“The best art is realized when you can share the experience of making of it and not just the presentation of it, so that the audience is part of the creation and not just part of the consumption. Th...”

“I am honored to be one of this year's Urbanworld ambassadors for the festival's 20th anniversary, joining my friend David Oyelowo. I have always had a special relationship with Urbanworld, back to ...”

“Positive characterizations are complex characterizations. That's all we need to know. They shouldn't be saccharine. They shouldn't feel like medicine.”

“Is there magic in this world? Certainly! But it is not the kind of magic written about in fantasy stories. It is the kind of magic that comes from ideas and the hard work it often takes to make the...”

“We become what we behold. We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.”

“A culture of unaccountability is a culture without incentive, and a culture without incentive is the death of critical and creative thinking.”

“I was ashamed of myself for being ashamed of myself. I didn't like feeling like that.”

“I felt like a failure, like somehow my self-worth was tied to my ability to procreate. I didn't feel like I could talk about it. I did not want other people's pity, so I mostly kept my story and my...”

“My failures may be my greatest successes. It is in failure that I have often drawn closer to God, learn to depend more on Him than myself, gained self-knowledge, and seen things in their right pers...”

“The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.”

“Joy is but the sign that creative emotion is fulfilling its purpose.”

“Everyone lives in two worlds, Maggie said, speaking in an absentminded sort of way while she studied her letters. Theres the real world, with all its annoying facts and rules. In the real world, th...”