"To me, the black black woman is our essential mother, the blacker she is the more us she is and to see the hatred that is turned on her is enough to make me despair, almost entirely, of our future as a people."

"In search of my mother's garden, I found my own."

"I have fallen in love with the imagination. And if you fall in love with the imagination, you understand that it is a free spirit. It will go anywhere, and it can do anything."

"War contributes greatly to global warming, which shouldn't surprise us. All those bombs going off, all those rockets, all those planes and helicopters. All that fuel of various kinds being used. It pollutes the air and water of this very fragile and interconnected planet."

"Sorrow can be alleviated by good sleep, a bath and a glass of wine."

"Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death."

"Christmas makes everything twice as sad."

"War is very sad and small life is pathetically fragile at times."