They tell me how they are not scared to die, but they are terrified of the lives circumstance forces them to lead.

I cannot think who my residents hurt but how I can give them tools to remain on the right side of civilization.

Most of the time, all the separates a class president and a gang leader is numbers: a zip code, a paycheck, or a drug dealer’s phone number.

In English, my name means hope. In Spanish, it means too many letters. It means sadness. It means waiting. It is like the number nine, a muddy color.

But she was waiting patiently. She no longer believed in talk. It never rescued anything. At seventy she had come to believe in time alone. ~pg 254

Oh, there's tons of resentment. That's normal. I can't control that, and I don't worry about it.

Privacy under what circumstance? Privacy at home under what circumstances? You have more privacy if everyone's illiterate, but you wouldn't really call that privacy. That's ignorance.

If it doesn't come bursting out of you in spite of everything, don’t do it.

People who say that music is dead or hip-hop is dead are refusing to evolve.

Sweeter than any sungMy songs that found no tongue;Nobler than any factMy wish that failed of act.Others shall sing the song,Others shall right the wrong,-Finish what I begin,And all I fail of win.

Perhaps we had at last reached that stage of intimacy that destroys intimacy.

I think when it comes to television as opposed to film, the producers really are the writers. We work with people who are purely financial producers.

Faith is the highest passion in a man.