Y-Gurrola

American women, without exception, are socialized to be racist, classist and sexist, in varying degrees, and … labeling ourselves feminists does not change the fact that we must consciously work to rid ourselves of the legacy of negative socialization.

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.

“I want you and your hands on the arch of night, to send you all the love I’ve ever felt inside. Whoever I may have liked before…I feel since I met you. Perhaps, perhaps in all the others..it’s only you I’ve always loved. Only you. And now the night comes to an end. Alone, alone, alone. But I think of your hands, and tenderly I fall asleep.”

I’m writing for black people, in the same way that Tolstoy was not writing for me, a 14-year-old coloured girl from Lorain, Ohio. I don’t have to apologise or consider myself limited because I don’t [write about white people] – which is not absolutely true, there are lots of white people in my books. The point is not having the white critic sit on your shoulder and approve it.