We live on the brink of disaster because we do not know how to let life alone. We do not respect the living and fruitful contradictions and paradoxes of which true life is full.

Music is pleasing not only because of the sound but because of the silence that is in it: without the alternation of sound and silence there would be no rhythm.

I never wanted to kill$$$ I am not naturally evil. Such things I do just to make myself more attractive to you—have I failed?

I am human and I need to be loved$$$ just like everybody else does.

Hark$$$ now hear the sailors cry$$$ smell the sea$$$ and feel the sky; let your soul & spirit fly$$$ into the mystic...

Because each had discovered years before that they were neither white nor male$$$ and that all freedom and triumph was forbidden to them$$$ they had set about creating something else to be.

Like friendship$$$ hatred needed more than physical intimacy; it wanted creativity and hard work to sustain itself.

I sold my elegant blackness to all those childhood ghosts and now they pay me for it.

My sex life became sort of like Diet Coke: deceptively sweet minus nutrition.

It may even be that some of us know what it is like to be actually hated$$$ hated for things we have no control over and cannot change.