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 learnt early on that your audience take the songs in the way they want to rather than the way you might want them too.

I've always had questions about what it meant to be a protester, to be in the minority. Are the people who are trying to find peace, who are trying to have the Constitution apply to everybody, are they really the radicals? We're not protesting from the outside. We're inside.

I was a piano player before I was a poet.

Oftentimes, the way it seems to be is that our artists in particular point themselves out as spokesmen for a certain constituency in a community, and thereby place themselves in that vulnerable position.

I cannot afford to watch Fox News.

As for money - when I have it, it's great. When I don't, I go get some. I've been a dishwasher, a gardener, a cleaner.