“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”

“Do you think I am an automaton? — a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because ...”

“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.”

“I do not think, sir, you have any right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you ...”

“No sight so sad as that of a naughty child," he began, "especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?""They go to hell," was my ready and orthodox answer."And what ...”

“If all the world hated you and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved of you and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.”

“Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that youve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you sa...”

“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there i...”

“Is there shame in living off your fellow man or being unable to take care ofyourself? You bet. But a person whos willing to work and pay their own waycan at least take pride in that even if they ca...”

“A true encounter with the living God will break the spirit of religiosity, empty man of his pride and conform even the most vile and wicked into a living vessel for His glory.”

“He has come to the most dreadful conclusion a literary man can come to, the conclusion that the ordinary view is the right one. It is only the last and wildest kind of courage that can stand on a t...”

“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.”