I knew from experience that next to jail the place with the highest concentration of trifling bitches was elementary school.

The way you turn a sad story around, you should be a comedian! You’re the funniest person I know.

When most folks think about the problems of growing up in the hood, they think about what it must feel like to be poor, or hungry, or to have your lights cut off. The struggle nobody talks about is what it feels like to be invisible, or to know in your heart that nobody cares. Mama didn’t want to be famous; she wanted to be seen. All those years I thought we were so different, but when I stepped onstage and saw all those facing smiling back at me, I realized Mama and I craved the same thing.

I was a grown woman before I found out black folks aren’t the only ones who have hard times. Everybody’s got a struggle. Nobody gets through this life easy.

Crack seemed to have a different hold on folks than liquor did. Drunks would sober up and come to their senses in the morning. But once a crackhead got hooked all they did was chase that high. Even if it meant selling everything they owned for a hit: wedding rings, household appliances, their kids’ clothes. Anything that had been important didn’t matter anymore.

There is a myth in this country that the way out of poverty is to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” that by sheer force of will one can change the course of one’s life, no matter how great the obstacles. But in all my years reporting, I’ve never once spoken to someone who came from abject poverty and transcended that path without help.

I could tell she was in the car. But she never showed up, and it was unlike her not to call back. She always called, pretty much every half-hour.

I called my wife and said, 'I took the cross country job,'

I'm not surprised he is where he is.

What am I going to do? I came back to a nightmare.