“Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?… Just so’s you’re sure, sweetheart, and ready to be healed, cause wholeness is no trifling matter. A lot of weight when you’re well.”

“For people sometimes believed that it was safer to live with complaints, was necessary to cooperate with grief, was all right to become an accomplice in self-ambush... Take heart to flat out decide to be well and stride into the future sane and whole.”

“We stand there with this big smile of respect between us. It’s about as real a smile as girls can do for each other, considering we don’t practice real smiling every day, you know, cause maybe we too busy being flowers or fairies or strawberries instead of something honest and worthy of respect . . . you know . . . like being people.”

“Write a lot and hit the streets. A writer who doesn't keep up with what's out there ain't gonna be out there.”

“(M)aybe we too busy being flowers or fairies or strawberries instead of something honest and worthy of respect . . . you know . . . like being people.”

“Writing is one of the ways I participate in transformation.”

“As a culture worker who belongs to an oppressed people my job is to make revolution irresistible.”