On the night he died - he was twenty-seven - Basquiat had been planning to see a Run-DMC show. When people asked him what his art was about, he'd hit them with the same three words: "Royalty, heroism, and the streets.

For me, being with Obama or having dinner with Bill Clinton... It's crazy. It's mind-blowing, because where I come from is just another world. We were just ignored by politicians, by America in general.

A wise man told me don't argue with fools. Cause people from a distance can't tell who is who.

It's hilarious a lot of times. You have a conversation with someone, and he's like, 'You speak so well!' I'm like, 'What do you mean? Do you understand that's an insult?

A poet's mission is to make words do more work than they normally do, to make them work on more than one level.

Be fluid. Treat each project differently. Be water, man. The best style is no style. Because styles can be figured out. And when you have no style they can't figure you out.

I got mouths to feed til they put flowers on me.