"Reviewers tend to have trouble with a writer like Toni Morrison, getting a handle on her, because she is doing someth…"

"Here is the house. It is green and white. It has a red door. It is very pretty."

"There is really nothing more to say — except why. But since why is difficult to handle, one must take refuge in how."

"Women's rights is not only an abstraction, a cause; it is also a personal affair. It is not only about "us"; it is al…"

"At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint or even remember it. It …"

"Was there anything so loathsome as a wilfully innocent man? Hardly. An innocent man is a sin before God. Inhuman and …"

"Writing to me is an advanced and slow form of reading. If you find a book you really want to read but it hasn't been …"

"Black women write differently from white women. This is the most marked difference of all those combinations of black…"

"Beginning Beloved with numerals rather than spelled out numbers, it was my intention to give the house an identity se…"

"The couple upstairs, united, didn't hear a sound, but below them, outside, all around 124 the snow went on and on and…"