"The very first thing I want to do is to get hold of a white man and get him to tell me how he feels about being white."

"I have been in sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peak of happiness and seen the world. I have been loved and hated, and I have done some of both. I have been a fri…"

"She was a rut in the road. Everybody else rode on, but she was stuck."

"I am not a writer. I am a storyteller."

"It seems to me that if I am to sustain myself as a writer, I must be given the right to write as I see fit."