You're gon' have to say to your self, am I gon' believe what them fools say about me today?.

I've become one of those people who prowl around at night in their cars. God, I am the town's Boo Radley, just like in To Kill A Mockingbird..

All my life I'd been told what to believe about politics, coloreds, being a girl. But with Constantine's thumb pressed in my hand, I realized I actua….

Her nose wrinkle up cause now she got to remember to say she Mae Mobley Three, when her whole life she can remember, she been telling people she Mae ….

Down in the national news section, there's an article on a new pill, the 'Valium' they're calling it, 'to help women cope with everyday challenges.' ….

What you learn today?" I ask even though she ain't in real school, just the pretend kind. Other day, when I ask her, she say, "Pilgrims. They came ov….

Miss Celia stares down into the pot like she's looking for her future. "Are you happy, Minny?" "Why you ask me funny questions like that?" "But are y….

Shame ain't black, like dirt, like I always thought it was. Shame be the color of a new white uniform your mother ironed all night to pay for, white ….

I have decided not to die..

Rich folk don't try so hard.

I'm tired of the rules," I say..

And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed..

You is kind. You is smart. You is important..

I started writing it the day after Sept. 11. I was living in New York City. We didnt have any phone service and we didnt have any mail. Like a lot of….

I do wish that people talked about the subject of race, especially in the South..

I always thought insanity would be a dark, bitter feeling, but it is drenching and delicious if you really roll around in it..

I give in and light another cigarette even though last night the surgeon general came on the television set and shook his finger at everybody, trying….

Truth. It feels cool, like water washing over my sticky-hot body. Cooling a heat that's been burning me up all my life. Truth, I say inside my head a….

Wasn't that the point of the book? For women to realize, We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought..

I come home that morning, after I been fired, and stood outside my house with my new work shoes on. The shoes my mama paid a month's worth a light bi….

If singing was a color, it would've been the color of that chocolate..