“it was dawning on me how uphill a poet's path was, and I confessed to her that if I had to be the choice between being happy or being a poet, I'd choose to be happy.”

“Mothers particular devils had remained mysterious to me for decades. So had her past. Few born liars ever intentionally embark in truths direction, even those who believe that such a journey might ...”

“Faith is not a feeling, she says. It's a set of actions. By taking the actions, you demonstrate more faith than somebody who actually has experienced the rewards of prayer and so feels hope.”

“If we didn't read people who were bastards, we'd never read anything. Even the best of us are at least part-time bastards.”

“But what if I don't believe in God? It's like they've sat me in front of a mannequin and said, Fall in love with him. You can't will feeling. What Jack says issues from some still, true place that ...”

“Memoir is not an act of history but an act of memory, which is innately corrupt.”

“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.”