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….

Because ain’t that white people for you, wondering if they are happy enough..

She already got the blue dress on I ironed this morning, the one with sixty-five pleats on the waist, so tiny I got to squint through my glasses to i….

Frying chicken always makes me feel a little better about life..

Got to be the worst place in the world, inside a oven. You in here, you either cleaning or you getting cooked..

I look deep into her rich brown eyes and she look into mine. Law, she got old-soul eyes, like she done lived a thousand years. And I swear I see, dow….

Some readers tell me, 'We always treated our maid like she was a member of the family.' You know, that's interesting, but I wonder what your maid's p….

Oh, it was delicious to have someone to keep secrets with. If I'd had a sister or a brother closer in age, I guessed that's what it would be like. Bu….

She dumb.” I sigh. “But she ain’t stupid..

I'm sorry, but were you dropped on your head as an infant?.

I was born in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1969, in a time and place where no one was saying, Look how far weve come, because we hadnt come very far, to ….

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….

It seems like at some point you'd run out of awful..

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

Babies like fat. Like to bury they face up in you armpit and go to sleep. They like big fat legs too. That I know..

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….

Miss Leefolt sigh, hang up the phone like she just don't know how her brain gone operate without Miss Hilly coming over to push the Think buttons..

Here's to new beginnings," Stuart says and raises his bourbon. I nod, sort of wanting to tell him that all beginnings are new..

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

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….

She hug me around my neck, say, "You're righter than Miss Taylor." I tear up then. My cup is spilling over. Those is new words to me..