Well, capitalism is a big problem, because with capitalism you're just going to keep buying and selling things until there's nothing else to buy and sell, which means gobbling up the planet.

I think writing really helps you heal yourself. I think if you write long enough, you will be a healthy person. That is, if you write what you need to write, as opposed to what will make money, or what will make fame.

Resist the temptation to think what afflicts you is peculiar to you. Have faith that what is in your consciousness can be communicated to the consciousness of all. And is, in many cases, already there.

In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they're still beautiful.

I grew up in the South [USA states] under segregation. I know what terrorism feels like - when your father could be taken out in the middle of the night and lynched just because he didn't look like he was in an obeying frame of mind when a white person said something he must do. That's terrorism, too.

All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my uncles. I had to fight my brothers. Girl, child ain't safe in a family of men, but I ain't never thought I had to fight in my own house. I loves Harpo. God knows I do. But I'll kill him dead before I let him beat me.

Poetry, I have discovered, is always unexpected and always as faithful and honest as dreams.