"I’m available to any and every adventure of the human breath.” - Toni Cade Bambara

Certain kinds of poisons, for example-rage, bitterness, revenge-don't need to be in the atmosphere, not to mention in my mouth.

There have been a lot of things in ... the Black experience for which there are no terms, certainly not in English at this moment. There are a lot of aspects of consciousness for which there is no vocabulary, no structure in the English language which would allow people to validate that experience through language. I'm trying to find a way to do that....I'm trying to break open and get at the bones, deal with symbols as though they were atoms. I'm trying to find out not only how a word gains meaning, but how a word gains power."

She would not break her discipline to comfort herself in a shallow way. Would no more break discipline with her Self than she would her covenant with God.