I was really worn down by an American society that is racist, smugly blind to it, and hugely self-satisfied.

We've been taught in America that big is best. That's why people have to believe that they must live in the greatest country in the world, which is absolutely idiotic.

I think people involved with institutions find it harder to know the time to go than the time to come.

Where does a black soul go to rest?

People need their history like they need air and food.

We all have to die, and I preferred to have just one death. It seems to me that to suffer insult without response is to die many deaths.

I've never had any trouble opposing people I've been close to. I've never worried about offending or bothering people I feel strongly about.

Something is very, very wrong with American culture. The signs are everywhere. I think the country is in almost terminal descent.

Americans don't bother to notice anybody else in the world.

I think the evangelicals want to provoke an immense global disaster to precipitate the second coming of Christ.

Democracy requires that if you who don't like the outcome of elections you have to tolerate it and then pursue your interest the next time around.

Every one of us will have situations in life where we must choose between pleasing people and our calling

When we lose Fenway, we lose the sense that somebody sat here and watched Ted Williams hit.

I'm not the kind of person who's always out at the club if I don't have to be. I like chilling. I think that comes across in my music.

I saw your wife the other day and she is ugly. I know, but she sure can cook.

My philosophy is whatever you do, you've got to invest in yourself. If you don't, there are a lot of people out there who will get the job because they're more prepared than you.

Nothing so difficult as a beginning In poesy, unless perhaps the end.

There are real facts in my poems, but facts mixed up in the perverse stubborn stew of imagination, add a pinch or two of revenge and retribution, a dash of amplification and reparation.

My husband is a fall-away Catholic, but with a vengeance. He's actually more of a feminist than I am.

Anthropocentrism is simply irrational. And yet this is the thrust of much of our traditional religious thought and teaching, particularly in the West.

The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.