“see chains on another person and be glad they are not your own--such was the good fortune permitted colored people, defined by how much worse it could be at any moment.”

“The word we. We are not one people but many different people. How can one person speak for this great, beautiful race--which is not one race but many, with a million desires and hopes and wished fo...”

“And America, too, is a delusion, the grandest one of all. The white race believes--believes with all its heart--that it is their right to take the land. To kill Indians. Make war. Enslave their bro...”

“The whites were right to be afraid. One day the system would collapse in blood. An insurrection of one. She smiled for a moment, before the facts of her latest cell reasserted themselves. Scrabblin...”

“Cora had heard Michael recite the Declaration of Independence back on the Randall plantation many times, his voice drifting through the village like an angry phantom. She didn't understand the word...”

“But nobody wanted to speak on the true disposition of the world. And no one wanted to hear it...The whites came to this land for a fresh start and to escape the tyranny of their masters, just as th...”

“This is the city, and I am one of the citizens/Whatever interests the rest interests me”

“In some neighborhoods, faces mature faster than bodies.”

“My advice for aspiring writers is go to New York. And if you cant go to New York, go to the place that represents New York to you, where the standards for writing are high, there are other people w...”