Love yourself. Just love yourself. In fact, the love of the self cures every kind of problem you have with yourself. For instance, if someone calls you nappy-headed, it rolls right off your body, if you love nappy hair. Or if someone calls you buck-toothed or too black, that won't be a problem if you love being buck-toothed or black. If you love it, then so what. The development of self-love cures many of the ills that people suffer from.

We alone can devalue gold by not caring if it falls or rises in the marketplace. Wherever there is gold there is a chain, you know, and if your chain is gold so much the worse for you.

I continue to care for President Obama and for his family. I think that in many ways they are very courageous people, and I honor that, because I know what it means to live as a black person in a racist America.

Poetry is the lifeblood of rebellion, revolution, and the raising of consciousness.

Abortion, for many women, is more than an experience of suffering beyond anything most men will ever know, it is an act of mercy, and an act of self-defense.

How sad now never to see men holding hands, while everywhere one looks they are holding guns.

It's an awful feeling to write something that you feel is really important... and to feel that you're being published by people who really don't get it and/or don't really care.