You don't have to love me but you damn well have to respect me. - Toni Morrison

It's a bad word, 'belong.' Especially when you put it with somebody you love ... You can't own a human being.

There is a loneliness that can be rocked. Arms crossed, knees drawn up, holding, holding on, this motion, unlike a ship's, smooths and contains the rocker. It's an inside kind — wrapped tight like skin. Then there is the loneliness that roams. No rocking can hold it down. It is alive. On its own. A dry and spreading thing that makes the sound of one's own feet going seem to come from a far-off place.

Like any artist without an art form, she became dangerous.