I'm not really anti-gang - I was a gang member and so was my son. I'm pro-youth, pro-community, pro-family, pro-arts, and pro-peace.

Gangs have always existed - they are primarily a community a young men trying to find intensity, meaning, a path to the outer world (outside of home) that most tribal groupings addressed with rituals, rites of passage, initiation ceremonies. We’ve lost this knowledge as a culture.

I was arrested and put in murder's row. They were trying to get me for some murders I didn't do. They had me in a cell next to Charles Manson; he was going to trial at the time. And it was all a row of black and brown guys and one white guy: Charles Manson.

Art is the heart's explosion on the world. Music. Dance. Poetry. Art on cars, on walls, on our skins. There is probably no more powerful force for change in this uncertain and crisis-ridden world than young people and their art. It is the consciousness of the world breaking away from the strangle grip of an archaic social order.

I've always been prepared to write about the hard things. Only for healing, teaching, and enlightening purposes not to hurt or disparage anyone.

Nobody had books at home. My dad was a very educated person, so he would have books at home. All Spanish books. That helped. Most of my homies had no books at home.

When you win, we win; but when you go down, you go down alone.