"If you have a problem, you don't go to the doctor, you go to the root doctor."

"I want to be myself, and I want to be a woman, and I want to be an American. And I want to be all of these things without apology."

"Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to 'jump at the sun.' We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground."

"There are years that ask questions and years that answer."

"Dat's what makes life so funny. Everybody want to be boss and nobody don't want to be boss."