“The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.”
—Toni Morrison
“I really love language. I love it for what it does for us, how it allows us to explain the pain and the glory, the nuances and delicacies of our existence.”
—Maya Angelou
“Story is a way out, a way past, a hand in the dark, a whisper of hope, the hope I have for all of us.”
—Dorothy Allison
“To make words precise enough and clear enough to be stood by also is everybody’s duty, but I think that that has got to be the paramount duty of every writer, not just of every poet.”