“There's the risk of being loved...and that would keep me from being happy.”

“Gula and Cali lie on their sides, their tiny adder-mouths showing the pink of their palates, their bodies throbbing with lustful and obscene dreams. The sky releases its burden of sun and color. Ey...”

“What did it matter if he existed for two or for twenty years? Happiness was the fact that he had existed.”

“Just as there is a moment when the artist must stop, when the sculpture must be left as it is, the painting untouchedjust as a determination not to know serves the maker more than all the resources...”

“I feel like getting married, or committing suicide, or subscribing to L'Illustration. Something desperate, you know.”

“Believe me there is no such thing as great suffering, great regret, great memory....everything is forgotten, even a great love. That's what's sad about life, and also what's wonderful about it. The...”

“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.”