We must wake up knowing we have work to do and go to bed knowing we've done it.

When you reach out and touch other human beings, it doesn't matter whether you call it therapy or teaching or poetry.

You will never be able to defend your city while shouting.

What I leave behind has a life of its own.

When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.

I was going to die, if not sooner, then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.

If what we need to dream, to move our spirits most deeply and directly toward and through promise, is discounted as a luxury, then we give up the core -- the fountain -- of our power, our womanness; we give up the future of our worlds. (From "Poetry is Not a Luxury")