We tend to think of the erotic as an easy, tantalizing sexual arousal. I speak of the erotic as the deepest life force, a force which moves us toward living in a fundamental way.
Life is very short and what we have to do must be done in the now.
I want to live the rest of my life, however long or short, with as much sweetness as I can decently manage, loving all the people I love, and doing as much as I can of the work I still have to do.
Revolution is not a one time event.
Raising Black children-female and male-in the mouth of a racist, sexist, suicidal dragon is perilous and chancy. If they cannot love and resist at the same time, they will probably not survive.
I am deliberate and afraid of nothing.
Battling racism and battling heterosexism and battling apartheid share the same urgency inside me as battling cancer.
The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference.
Your silence will not protect you.
Tomorrow belongs to those of us who conceive of it as belonging to everyone; who lend the best of ourselves to it, and with joy.
Our visions begin with our desires.
Each time you love, love as deeply as if it were forever.
For women, then, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence.
I do not want to be tolerated, or misnamed. I want to be recognized.
I realize that if I wait until I am no longer afraid to act, write, speak, be, I’ll be sending messages on a Ouija board, cryptic complaints from the other side.
I write for those women who do not speak, for those who do not have a voice because they were so terrified, because we are taught to respect fear more than ourselves. We’ve been taught that silence would save us, but it won’t.
I am a bleak heroism of words that refuse to be buried alive with the liars.
There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.
It is not the destiny of Black America to repeat white America’s mistakes. But we will, if we mistake the trappings of success in a sick society for the signs of a meaningful life.
Art is not living. It is the use of living.