My influences have been what I call my four Bs - the primary one being the blues, then Borges, Baraka, and Bearden.

I first got involved in theater in 1968, at the height of a social tumult. I was a poet.

The simpler you say it, the more eloquent it is.

You are responsible for the world that you live in.

I found out life's hard but it ain't impossible.

Have a belief in yourself that is bigger than anyone's disbelief.

You got to be right with yourself before you can be right with anybody else.