No, I saw the bible as a literary masterpiece, but literature all the same; and Christianity owed its rules and regulations to politics more than anything else, while filling pews with uncertainty and fear. Substitute the Torah, the Koran, the Bhagavad-Gita, a synagogue, a mosque, a temple, for all the above and the formula worked perfectly. All of the bloodletting and chaos, the devotion and beauty, martyrdom, and even charity could be reduced to a simple formula of politics and fear.

Gloria Naylor, Mama Day (1988)

Writing is a conversation with reading; a dialogue with thinking.

Nikki Giovanni, Racism 101 (1994)