There Are No New Ideas. There Are

The Speaking Will Get Easier And Easier. And You Will Find You Have Fallen In Love With Your Own Vision, Which You May Never Have Realized You Had. And You Will Lose Some Friends And Lovers, And Realize You Don't Miss Them. And New Ones Will Find You And Cherish You. And At Last You'll Know With Surpassing Certainty That Only One Thing Is More Frightening Than Speaking Your Truth. And That Is Not Speaking.

The Difference Between Poetry And Rhetoric Is Being Ready To Kill Yourself Instead Of Your Children.

I Learned To Read From Mrs. Augusta Baker, The Children's Librarian. ... If That Was The Only Good Deed That Lady Ever Did In Her Life, May She Rest In Peace. Because That Deed Saved My Life, If Not Sooner, Then Later, When Sometimes The Only Thing I Had To Hold On To Was Knowing I Could Read.

It Is Not The Destiny Of Black America To Repeat White America's Mistakes. But We Will, If We Mistake The Trappings Of Success In A Sick Society For The Signs Of A Meaningful Life.

I Stand Here As A Black Lesbian Feminist, Having Been Invited To Comment Within The Only Panel At This Conference Where The Input Of Black Feminists And Lesbians Is Represented. What This Says About The Vision Of This Conference Is Sad, In A Country Where Racism, Sexism And Homophobia Are Inseparable. . . .