I could never live happily in Africa-or anywhere else-until I could live freely in Mississippi.
It’s essential that we understand that taking care of the planet will be done as we take care of ourselves. You know that you can’t really make much of a difference in things until you change yourself.
Human beings may well be unable to break free of the dictatorship of greed that spreads like a miasma over the world, but no longer will we be an inarticulate and ignorant humanity, confused by our enslavement to superior cruelty and weaponry.
When the ax came into the forest the trees said the handle is one of us.
Those in power must spend a lot of their time laughing at us.
The protection of evil must be the most self-destructive job.
Everything is already perfect. And if you can accept that everything is already perfect, the imperfection is a part of the perfection. What’s to worry about?
You seem so clear about who you are. So certain that you are just right as you are, that for all your intelligence and maybe in spite of it, you never seem to need a second opinion.
How sad now never to see men holding hands, while everywhere one looks they are holding guns.
But I don’t know how to fight. All I know how to do is stay alive.
In order to be able to live at all in America I must be unafraid to live anywhere in it, and I must be able to live in the fashion and with whom I choose.
A burnt finger remember the fire.
The gift of loneliness is sometimes a radical vision of society or one’s people that has not previously been taken into account.
I’m mad about the waste that happens when people who love each other can’t even bring themselves to talk.
Aside from the fact that they say it’s unhealthy, my fat ain’t never been no trouble. Mens always have loved me. My kids ain’t never complained. Plus they’s fat.
I think there is a sense of being forced at this time to look at America’s really large shadow and that’s not all that bad.
There are those who believe Black people possess the secret of joy and that it is this that will sustain them through any spiritual or moral or physical devastation.
I think colors are miraculous. We live in a universe that is extremely creative and magical. We become happier as we appreciate these things in nature.
My mother was very strong. Once, she picked up a coconut and smashed it against my father’s head. It taught me about women defending themselves and not collapsing in a heap.
Revolt is the mirror in which greed is forced to see itself.