The artist...is the voice of the people.

When life descends into the pit I must become my own candle Willingly burning my self To light up the darkness around me.

I started out as a poet. I've always been a poet since I was 7 or 8. And so I feel myself to be fundamentally a poet who got into writing novels.

What a burden to think one is conceived in sin rather than in pleasure; that one is born into evil rather than into joy.

What the mind doesn't understand, it worships or fears.

Howard Zinn was magical as a teacher. Witty, irreverent, and wise, he loved what he was teaching and clearly wanted his students to love it, also.

The trouble with our people is as soon as they got out of slavery they didn't want to give the white man nothing else. But the fact is, you got to give em something. Either your money, your land, your woman or your ass.