I am deliberate and afraid of nothing.

There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.

The failure of academic feminists to recognize difference as a crucial strength is a failure to reach beyond the first patriarchal lesson. In our world, divide and conquer must become define and empower.

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.

Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before.

But, on the other hand, I get bored with racism too and recognize that there are still many things to be said about a Black person and a White person loving each other in a racist society.

When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.

If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.

When I use my strength in the service of my vision it makes no difference whether or not I am afraid.

It's a struggle but that's why we exist, so that another generation of Lesbians of color will not have to invent themselves, or their history, all over again.

Each time you love, love as deeply as if it were forever.

We have to consciously study how to be tender with each other until it becomes a habit because what was native has been stolen from us, the love of Black women for each other.

There's always someone asking you to underline one piece of yourself - whether it's Black, woman, mother, dyke, teacher, etc. - because that's the piece that they need to key in to. They want to dismiss everything else.

The learning process is something you can incite, literally incite, like a riot.

Only by learning to live in harmony with your contradictions can you keep it all afloat.

I can't really define it in sexual terms alone although our sexuality is so energizing why not enjoy it too?

The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives.

Life is very short and what we have to do must be done in the now.