Is not a woman's heart unfathomable?

Nothing is more dreadful than private duels in America. The two adversaries attack each other like wild beasts. Then it is that they might well covet those wonderful properties of the Indians of the prairies - their quick intelligence, their ingenious cunning, their scent of the enemy.

When the mind once allows a doubt to gain entrance, the value of deeds performed grow less, their character changes, we forget the past and dread the future.

To put up with what you cannot avoid is a philosophical principle, that may not perhaps lead you to the accomplishment of great deeds, but is assuredly eminently practical.

I think I began to like writing a lot more, and to be a better writer, when I did it for a while alone. It made me a little more confident about my style.

But, after all, the aim of art is to create space - space that is not compromised by decoration or illustration, space within which the subjects of painting can live.

As a little girl, my destiny was stamped onto the canvas of my imagination at 5 years old. I was watching soaps with my grandmother... The most gorgeous black women I had ever seen in my life came out, and I knew that that is what I wanted to do - be fabulous and black and on TV.

A love of classical music is only partially a natural response to hearing the works performed, it also must come about by a decision to listen carefully, to pay close attention, a decision inevitably motivated by the cultural and social prestige of the art.