Je M'appelle

“A man's bookcase will tell you everything you'll ever need to know about him," my father had told me more than once. "A businessman has business books and a dream has novels and books of poetry. Most women like reading about love, and a true revolutionary will have books about the minutiae of overthrowing the oppressor. A person with no books is inconsequential in a modern setting, but a peasant that reads is a prince in waiting.”
― Walter Mosley, THE LONG FALL: A NOVEL

“If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”
― Zora Neale Hurston

“I certainly wasn't seeking any degree, the way a college confers a status symbol upon its students. My homemade education gave me, with every additional book that I read, a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America. Not long ago, an English writer telephoned me, asking questions. One was, "What's your alma mater?" I told him, "Books.”
― Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

“Men cheat. They lie. They love porn. The don't respect you and don't care if they hurt you. It's the fucking breaks. Women divorce 'em 'cause we can't tame 'em or train 'em or control 'em like we do household pets. End of story.”
― Terry McMillan, Getting to Happy