An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.

We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.

So since I'm still here livin', I guess I will live on. I could've died for love-- But for livin' I was born.

Let America be America, where equality is in the air we breathe.

My seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind.

Politics in any country in the world is dangerous. For the poet, politics in any country had better be disguised as poetry. Politics can be the graveyard of the poet. And only poetry can be his resurrection.

The rhythm of life is a jazz rhythm