...I write to keep in contact with our ancestors and to spread truth to people.

I cannot tell the truth about anything unless I confess being a student, growing and learning something new every day. The more I learn, the clearer my view of the world becomes.

You can't have relationships with other people until you give birth to yourself.

The most fundamental truth to be told in any art form, as far as Blacks are concerned, is that America is killing us.

All poets, all writers are political. They either maintain the status quo, or they say, 'Something's wrong, let's change it for the better.'

No. Don't never go looking for love girl. Just wait. It'll come. Like the rain fallin' from the heaven, it'll come. Just don't never give up on love.

I shall become, I shall become a collector of me. And put meat on my soul.

And I cried… for all of the women who stretched their bodies for civilizations, only to find ruins.

The black artist is dangerous. Black art controls the 'Negro's' reality, negates negative influences, and creates positive images.

... in order to be a true revolutionary, you must understand love. Love, sacrifice, and death.

So much of growing up is an unbearable waiting. A constant longing for another time. Another season.

The wealth required by nature is limited and is easy to procure

the abyss you stare into and that stares back at you is your reflection in the mirror - we all have it - that shadow self - that dark heart...

If death weren't around to 'finalize' the Darwinian process, we'd all still be amoebas.

Beauty is subjective and should not be limited to only what we see on the outside.

All artists have runners, people that tell them what to do, business managers, lawyers, these - if they get the right ones, they're lucky, and if they get the wrong ones, they're unlucky.

No taste is so acquired as that for someone else's quality of mind.

I love being in Chicago.

The sand murmurs that it wants to swallow everything.

The leader demonstrates confidence that the challenge can be met, the need resolved, the crisis overcome.

Then I strip the pants away from each leg, like peeling a banana. That's it, the perfect metaphor: peeling a banana.