“You can’t hate the roots of the tree without ending up hating the tree. You can’t hate your origin without ending up hating yourself. You can’t hate the land, your motherland, the place that you come from, and we can’t hate Africa without ending up hating ourselves. The Black man in the Western Hemisphere—North America, Central America, South America, and in the Caribbean—is the best example of how one can be made, skillfully, to hate himself that you can find anywhere on this earth.”

“By making our people in the Western Hemisphere hate Africa, we ended up hating ourselves. We hated our African characteristics. We hated our African identity. We hated our African features. So much so that you would find those of us in the West who would hate the shape of our nose. We would hate the shape of our lips. We would hate the color of our skin and the texture of our hair. This was a reaction, but we didn’t realize that it was a reaction.”

“You can't hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree.”

“I hate you. I hate you like the girl who hates cake because it makes her fat and she can’t stop eating it.”

“When you really know somebody you can’t hate them. Or maybe it’s just that you can’t really know them until you stop hating them.”

“How does fear become so powerful? We can’t see it. We can’t touch it, yet it gets its claws in us and begins to control us. Sigh. I hate feeling afraid, and I hate, hate, HATE feeling out of control.”