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Write at the edges of the day.

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Nobody loves the head of a dandelion. Maybe because they are so many, strong, and soon.

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No gasp at a miracle that is truly miraculous because the magic lies in the fact that you knew it was there for you all along.

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It's gonna hurt, now," said Amy. "anything dead coming back to life hurts.

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I never asked Tolstoy to write for me, a little colored girl in Lorain, Ohio. I never asked [James] Joyce not to mention Catholicism or the world of D...more

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And in all those escapes he could not help being astonished by the beauty of this land that was not his. He his in its breast, fingered its earth for ...more

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Good for you. More it hurt more better it is. Can't nothing heal without pain, you know.

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...maybe you think up North is way different from down South. Don't believe it and don't count on it. Custom is just as real as law and can be just as...more

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…he didn’t needs words or even want them because he knew how they could lie, could heat your blood and disappear.

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I laughed but before I could agree with the hairdressers that she was crazy, she said, 'What's the world for if you can't make it up the way you want ...more

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We women, me and you. Tell me something real. Don’t just say I’m grown and ought to know. I don’t. I’m fifty and I don’t know nothing. What about it? ...more

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Violet learned then what she had forgotten until this moment: that laughter is serious. More complicated, more serious than tears.

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Black women were armed, black women were dangerous and the less money they had the deadlier the weapon they chose.

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I don’t want to be a free nigger; I want to be a free man.”“Don’t we all. Look. Be what you want--- white or black. Choose. But if you choose black, y...more

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But it wasn't all bad. Sometimes things wasn't all bad. He used to come home easing into bed sometimes, not too drunk. I make out like I'm asleep, 'ca...more