I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it. People think pleasing God is all God cares about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.
Laughter isn’t even the other side of tears. It is tears turned inside out. Truly the suffering is great, here on earth. We blunder along, shredded by our mistakes, bludgeoned by our faults. Not having a clue where the dark path leads us. But on the whole, we stumble along bravely, don’t you think?
Never offer your heart to someone who eats hearts who finds heartmeat delicious but not rare who sucks the juices drop by drop and bloody-chinned grins like a God.
We do not believe in heaven or hell... ; we do not believe in eternal damnation. We believe only in the unavoidable horror of hurting others and of likewise being hurt.
God is different to us now, after all these years in Africa. More spirit than ever before, and more internal. Most people think he has to look like something or someone- a roofleaf or Christ- but we don’t. And not being tied to what God looks like, frees us.
What did it mean for a black woman to be an artist in our grandmothers’ time? In our great-grandmothers’ day? It is an answer cruel enough to stop the blood.
We all have to start somewhere if us want to do better, an d out of self is what us have to hand.
Dear God. Dear stars, dear trees, dear sky, dear peoples. Dear Everything. Dear God.
There is so much we don’t understand. And so much unhappiness that comes because of that.
There is a special grief felt by the children and grandchildren of those who were forbidden to read, forbidden to question or to know.
World wars have been fought and lost; for every war is against the world and every war against the world is lost.
Perhaps this is simply the way it is with writers. It’s when they don’t see you that you matter. Because then you can belong to them in a way that permits them complete possession. You are determined by them. You are controlled. You are, generally speaking, exaggerated.
If she come, I be happy. If she don’t, I be content. And then I figure this the lesson I was suppose tolearn.
I think Africans are very much like white people back home, in that they think they are the center of the universe and that everything that is done is done for them.
In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful.
No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.