You see Martin Luther King is dead and Huey Newton is not. And Malcolm X is dead and Bobby Seale is not. And Vernon Jordan was shot. The thing that revolutionaries, or even people who want to claim they're revolutionaries, often forget is that it doesn't make no difference what kind of wardrobe you wear, and if you speak up about Black people doing better you just risked your life.

I tour more than I need to, more than is good for you. But it's my favorite part of music. I much prefer it to studio work.

I was a piano player before I was a poet.

Man is a complex being: he makes deserts bloom - and lakes die.

Our accomplishments show what kind of people we are.

I cannot afford to watch Fox News.

America .. the international Jekyll and Hyde ... the land of a thousand disguises, sneaks up on you but rarely surprises