1. “An artist represents an oppressed people and makes revolution irresistible.”
2. “Old folks are the nation.”
3. “Medication without explanation is obscene.”
4. “People have to be given permission to write, and they have to be given pace to breathe and stumble. They have to be given time to develop and to reveal what they can do.”
5. “A story is a piece of work. The novel is a way of life.”
6. “Not all speed is movement.”
7. “And what is religion, you might ask. It’s a technology of living.”
8. “Writing is one of the ways I participate in transformation.”
9. “It’s a dismally lonely business, writing.”
10. “The job of the writer is to make revolution irresistible.”
11. “The dream is real, my friends. The failure to make it work is the unreality.”
12. “Writing is a legitimate way, an important way, to participate in the empowerment of the community that names me.”
13. “My responsibility to myself, my neighbors, my family an the human family is to try to tell the truth.”
14. “The only proper mask to wear in life is your own damn face.”
15. “Revolution begins with the self, in the self.”
