I play piano, by ear. Yes, I write songs... and good ones.

You've got to learn to leave the table When love's no longer being served".

I tell you what freedom is to me: no fear.

What kept me sane was knowing that things would change, and it was a question of keeping myself together until they did.

You can't help it. An artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times.

Life is short. People are not easy to know. They're not easy to know, so if you don't tell them how you feel, you're not going to get anywhere, I feel.

You have to learn to get up from the table when love is not being served.

Talent is a burden not a joy. I am not of this planet. I do not come from you. I am not like you.

How do you explain what it feels like to get on the stage and make poetry that you know sinks into the hearts and souls of people who are unable to express it

There's no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were.

Slavery has never been abolished from America's way of thinking.

The Bible is God’s book of promises, and, unlike the books of men, it does not change or get out of date.

I don't accept defeat as final. Only death is final - and even then I hope for a reprieve.

If you have ideas, you have the main asset you need, and there isn't any limit to what you can do with your business and your life. Ideas are any man's greatest asset.

The time-deaf are unable to speak what they know. For speech needs a sequence of words, spoken in time.

There's nothing a priori good about equality. One person has three televisions, the other has two, so what?

When you hang a man, you better look at him.

People romanticize, I think, this notion of life. But life at all costs is not life, it's ego-extension.

I've been writing stories since I was 12. 'Writer's Digest' was one of my writing teachers, actually.

There are no wild animals until man makes them so.

Numbers have life; they’re not just symbols on paper.