Showing 10 of 21945 quotes
One child must never be set above another, even in casual conversation, not to mention in speeches that circle the globe. ”
I continue to care for President Obama and for his family. I think that in many ways they are very courageous people, and I honor that, because I know what it means to live as a black person in a racist America. ”
My family was a poor farming family, and we lived under absolute segregation. ”
I know from having had a child, and from having been a child myself, that children will copy you. ”
I started writing as a child. But I didn't think of myself actually writing until I was in college. And I had gone to Africa as a sophomore or something - no, maybe junior - and wrote a book of poems. And that was my beginning. I published that book. ”
Part of our tradition as black women is that we are universalists. Black children, yellow children, red children, brown children, that is the black woman's normal, day-to-day relationship. In my family alone, we are about four different colors. ”
I see children, all children, as humanity's most precious resource, because it will be to them that the care of the planet will always be left. ”
The most important question in the world is, 'Why is the child crying?' ”
It is healthier, in any case, to write for the adults one's children will become than for the children one's 'mature' critics often are. ”
We must, I believe, start teaching our children the sanity of nonviolence much earlier. ”