People say what distinguishes us from the animals is that we think. Well, then why the hell don't we extend some compassion to those under tremendous duress? There's this whole idea that you work really hard so you can deaden your soul to the universe and enjoy yourself only in ways the Sierra Club will let you. But what about enjoying yourself by getting into the whole melee of poverty and racism and violence and murder and drug addiction? Get in there, roll up your sleeves, and do something! Nobody does it.

Every poem is an infant labored into birth and I am drenched with sweating effort, tired from the pain and hurt of being a man, in the poem I transform myself into a woman.

I believe it's our responsibility as citizens to get in there and not accept the constant failure of prisons to deal with racism, lack of privilege, and impoverishment - not accept any of that. Just get in there!

I am learning to look at myself differently, to see the scattered remnants of hope and dreams and collect them again.

One thing America truly does stand for is a million different ways of living. But while we enjoy the lives we have, we're so privileged. We live in a world that's so far from what the Palestinian children are going through, it's unbelievable. Yet if we dare to get close to that atrocity and name it, it would shock us so badly we couldn't live in our privileged comfort zone.

Being a human being without forgiveness is like being a guitarist without fingers or being the diva without a tongue.

How much truth can we bear? Our tolerance for carrying the truth is not very high. I mean, the slightest discomfort about truth and we run to our refuge of our jobs and our schools and our friends who keep supporting our blindness.