“I had no more alphabetthan the journeying of the swallows,the pure and tiny waterof the small, fiery birdthat dances rising from the pollen.”

“It was as if someone had taken a tiny bead of pure life and decking it as lightly as possible with down and feathers, had set it dancing and zigzagging to show us the true nature of life.”

“I feel enormously blessed to be a successful black woman writer in this culture, but I have found my small fame, such as it is, to be very isolating... because I think that especially for black women, the more we rise from the bottom, the more we move and journey, the more we are the targets of the most brutal and vicious attacks.”

“I am like a small creature swallowed whole by a monster, she thought, and the monster feels my tiny little movements inside.”

“It was as if a morning-glory had bloomed in her throat, and all that blue and small pollen ate into my heart, violent and religious”

“Such a small, pure object a poem could be, made of nothing but air a tiny string of letters, maybe small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. But it could blow everybody's head off.”