I told my parents when I was 12 I'd be a writer.

I think life experiences are different for people who know what they want as children.

In this culture, the phrase 'black woman' is not synonymous with 'tender,' or 'gentle.' It's as if those words couldn't possibly speak to the reality of black females.

I love my family, even as I critique their dysfunctionalities.

To live fixated on the future is to engage in psychological denial. It is a form of psychic violence that prepares us to accept the violence needed to ensure the maintenance of imperialist, future-oriented society.

Blacks who lack a proper killing rage are merely victims.

I can be standing in Barneys with my coat and purse and my selections, and some white woman will say, 'Can you get this in my size?' What she sees is a black woman, and her service button goes off.

There is a lushness to how my mind works.

It really fascinates me what white people are allowed to write about.

The ethic of liberal individualism has so deeply permeated the psyches of blacks... of all classes that we have little support for a political ethic of communalism that promotes the sharing of resources.

Whenever women struggle with breast cancer and face better care than ever, that's feminism.

An often-repeated assertion in the body of film criticism I have written is the assertion that movies do not just mirror the culture of any given time; they also create it.

The institutionalization of Black Studies, Feminist Studies, all of these things, led to a sense that the struggle was over for a lot of people and that one did not have to continue the personal consciousness-raising and changing of one's viewpoint.

Certainly we can end racism with love. We can demand that the federal government change its emphasis on racial distinction.

A major part of love is commitment. If we are committed to someone, if I'm committed to loving you, then it's not possible for me to 'fall out of love.'

The people I love, I'm committed to loving for the rest of my life.

I don't think you can hate anything that you know intimately. There is no fine line separating love from hate because there's a deep chasm separating love from hate.