Music has been a burden and a joy for as long as I can remember.

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.

Act as if there is no chance of failure.

30 or 40 of such voluntary gentlemen would do more in a day than 100 of the rest that must be press'd to it by compulsion.

The critics only made me work harder.

Even though the story [Fences] is set during the 1950s, some contemporary women might have trouble understanding her decision.

Christ exhausted the cup of God’s wrath. For all who trust in Him there is nothing more in the cup. It is empty.

Jesus was the First American.

There were big problems with every system, and there always have been.

Even if I had nothing to do with the Canada Council, I'd be praying for it.

The Turks can be killed, but they can never be conquered.

Past and future exist only in our memory. The present moment, though, is outside of time, it's Eternity.