Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.

Remember, to hate, to be violent, is demeaning. It means you're afraid of the other side of the coin -- to love and be loved.

No one can possibly know what is about to happen: it is happening, each time, for the first time, for the only time.

Not only was I not born to be a slave; I was not born to hope to become the equal of the slave master.

The poet or the revolutionary is there to articulate the necessity, but until the people themselves apprehend it, nothing can happen ... Perhaps it can't be done without the poet, but it certainly can't be done without the people. The poet and the people get on generally very badly, and yet they need each other. The poet knows it sooner than the people do. The people usually know it after the poet is dead; but that's all right. The point is to get your work done, and your work is to change the world.

Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be

One can only face in others what one can face in oneself.