I was a better writer when I was teaching. I was constantly going over the basics and constantly reminding myself, as I reminded my students, what made a good story, a good poem.

I was born in Chicago, but I was raised in a town called Jackson, Tennessee. And a lot of these changes that were necessary and talked about it as important have been made, like, people go to school where they want to go. They work for equal pay, they work for - they can go school and have an equal shot at a job.

Every once in a while, you live long enough to get the respect that people didn't want to give while you were trying to become a senior citizen.

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

Angel dust won't go away. Somefolks who were smoking it were going away.

Well the first thing I want to say is mandate, my ass... We've been convinced that 26% of the registered voters is actually a mandate. We're all actors in this I suppose.

The way you get to know yourself is by the expressions on other people's faces, because that's the only thing that you can see, unless you carry a mirror about.