Bell Hooks

“The political core of any movement for freedom in the society has to have the political imperative to protect free speech.”

“I thought about how we need to make children feel that there are times in their lives when they need to be alone and quiet and to be able to accept their aloneness.”

“Death is with you all the time you get deeper in it as you move towards it, but it's not unfamiliar to you. It's always been there, so what becomes unfamiliar to you when you pass away from the moment is really life.”

“What's really sad is that so many young women between the ages of 16 and 25 are ignorant and they already believe that women get the same pay as men. They don't even really understand that equality hasn't happened with the pay force.”

“Many spiritual teachers - in Buddhism, in Islam - have talked about first-hand experience of the world as an important part of the path to wisdom, to enlightenment.”

“I have been thinking about the notion of perfect love as being without fear, and what that means for us in a world that's becoming increasingly xenophobic, tortured by fundamentalism and nationalism.”

“For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?”

“I think the number one thing Black women and all Black people should be paying attention to is our health.”

“I'm such a girl for the living room. I really like to stay in my nest and not move. I travel in my mind, and that that's a rigorous state of journeying for me. My body isn't that interested in moving from place to place.”

“No other group in America has so had their identity socialized out of existence as have black women... When black people are talked about the focus tends to be on black men and when women are talked about the focus tends to be on white women.”

“I'm so disturbed when my women students behave as though they can only read women, or black students behave as though they can only read blacks, or white students behave as though they can only identify with a white writer.”