Suffice it to say, I'm not poor.

I ain't never found no place for me to fit. Seem like all I do is start over. It ain't nothing to find no starting place in the world. You just start from where you find yourself.

You got to take the crookeds with the straights. That's what Papa used to say.

When the sins of our fathers visit us We do not have to play host. We can banish them with forgiveness As God, in his His Largeness and Laws.

You are responsible for the world that you live in.

All of art is a search for ways of being, of living life more fully.

My greatest influence has been the blues. And that's a literary influence, because I think the blues is the best literature that we as black Americans have.