Since I was three I've been playing the piano. I've been onstage. My mother is an Evangelist and I used to play the piano at her revival meetings.

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.

To be a poet is a condition, not a profession.

Anger is a deception. You engage it thinking you'll feel better but ultimately it drills you deeper in the hurt.

What's tragic isn't that we can't retaliate...What's truly tragic is......being consumed with vengeance and not being able to live your life.

The polls indicated that I was feisty, that I was tough, that I had a sense of humor, but they weren't quite sure if they liked me and they didn't know whether or not that I was sensitive.

One should respect a defeated opponent!

In the songs that I write, that's where I get to be really brave and outspoken.

We have severely underestimated the Russians, the extent of the country and the treachery of the climate. This is the revenge of reality.

I cannot hate them because nothing binds me to them; I have nothing in common with them.

My guitar, I sing of thee 'Tis with thee that I decoy And ensnare enchantingly the ladies I enjoy.

That miracles have been, I do believe; that they may yet be wrought by the living, I do not deny: but have no confidence in those which are fathered on the dead.