"All partisan movements add to the fullness of our understanding of society as a whole. They never detract; or, in any case, one must not allow them to do so. Experience adds to experience." "Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me." "Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book, If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for." "Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise." "For in the end, freedom is a personal and lonely battle; and one faces down fears of today so that those of tomorrow might be engaged." "Helped are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception and realize a partnership in the creation of the Universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful." "How simple a thing it seems to me that to know ourselves as we are, we must know our mothers names." "I have learned not to worry about love; but to honor its coming with all my heart." "I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it." "I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way we were brought up to." "I'm always amazed that people will actually choose to sit in front of the television and just be savaged by stuff that belittles their intelligence." "In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they're still beautiful." "In search of my mother's garden, I found my own." "It is healthier, in any case, to write for the adults one's children will become than for the children one's "mature" critics often are." "It no longer bothers me that I may be constantly searching for father figures; by this time, I have found several and dearly enjoyed knowing them all." "It seems our fate to be incorrect (look where we live, for example), and in our incorrectness stand." "It's so clear that you have to cherish everyone. I think that's what I get from these older black women, that every soul is to be cherished, that every flower Is to bloom." "Life is better than death, I believe, if only because it is less boring, and because it has fresh peaches in it." "Never be the only one, except, possibly, in your own home." "No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow." "Nobody is as powerful as we make them out to be." "People do not wish to appear foolish; to avoid the appearance of foolishness, they are willing to remain actually fools." "Tea to the English is really a picnic indoors." "The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men." "The experience of God, or in any case the possibility of experiencing God, is innate." "The gift of loneliness is sometimes a radical vision of society or one's people that has not previously been taken into account." "The most important question in the world is, 'Why is the child crying?'" "The quietly pacifist peaceful always die to make room for men who shout." "Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk?" "Writing saved me from the sin and inconvenience of violence." "Yes, Mother. I can see you are flawed. You have not hidden it. That is your greatest gift to me."
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