I think novels just really show us the deepest parts of people's hearts, and you cannot walk away anymore and say, "I don't know."

All anyone can hope for is just a tiny bit of love, like a drop in a cup if you can get it, or a waterfall, a flood, if you can get that too.

Love is like the rain. It comes in a drizzle sometimes. Then it starts pouring and if you're not careful it will drown you.

Create dangerously, for people who read dangerously. ... Writing, knowing in part that no matter how trivial your words may seem, someday, somewhere, someone may risk his or her life to read them.

There is a frustration too, that at moments when there's not a coup, when there are not people in the streets, that the country disappears from people's consciousness.

When you write ,it's like braiding your hair. Taking a handful of coarse unruly strands and attempting to bring then unity.

It's not easy to start over in a new place,' he said. 'Exile is not for everyone. Someone has to stay behind, to receive the letters and greet family members when they come back.

People are just too hopeful, and sometimes hope is the biggest weapon of all to use against us. People will believe anything.

I think Haiti is a place that suffers so much from neglect that people only want to hear about it when it’s at its extreme. And that’s what they end up knowing about it.

Toni Cade Bambara said: “Writing is the way I participate in the struggle.”

Misery won't touch you gentle. It always leaves its thumbprints on you; sometimes it leaves them for others to see, sometimes for nobody but you to know of.

There are two types of 'busy': 1)Constantly distracting yourself from what is true. 2) Constantly working to create something real.

the sapphire depthof my own love...startlesand warmsand wounds my soul.

We owe at least this much to future generations, from whom we have borrowed a fragile planet called Earth.

The lifetime we've left behind with strangers Promises and lies both have their dangers. I just can't be wrong enough and I can't hide for long enough So far away, but I still feel your pain.

I have written most of my melodies walking and I feel it is definitely one of the most helpful ways of sewing all of the different things in your life together and seeing the whole picture.

The only thing that should surprise us is that there are still some things that can surprise us.

America preaches integration and practices segregation.

I love being onstage and I love to perform. To be honest with you, I'm more comfortable performing than I am in an everyday situation, which I can't quite explain.

I think I was annoyed going through the '90s just as a guy who loves music. There wasn't a lot of music for me. Everything was groove driven. We lost the plot with the melody. There's no more melody.

One example is worth a thousand arguments.