... I see the country going fascist. We have been going that route a long, long time. A lot of things the country has done from its inception were fascist. But now, now I think we are in the face of a terrible fascist dictatorship.

A writer needs certain conditions in which to work and create art. She needs a piece of time; a peace of mind; a quiet place; and a private life.

I have always secretly felt that what mankind should be in an ideal sense is that mixture of people and races. I really believe in it. I don't think there is anything sacred in the integrity of race, white or black.

The poetry of a people comes from the deep recesses of the unconscious, the irrational and the collective body of our ancestral memories.

Let a new earth rise. Let another world be born. Let a bloody peace be written in the sky. Let a second generation full of courage issue forth; let a people loving freedom come to growth.

I believe deeply in a common humanity. The black man belongs to the family of man. One part of that family is out of control - like a virus or cancer - and that is the white man. He and his technological society are bent on destroying the world. Everywhere the white man has gone with his empire, he has destroyed people, races, societies, cultures, and in the course of it, has sterilized himself. He is completely the mechanical man: without heart, without soul. He is the Tin Man of The Wizard of Oz. But I don't believe that all the white people in the world are no good.

I do not believe that hating any man solves the problem of race or any other problem. ... I firmly believe that hatred, like anger, works on the physical glandular system as well as on the moral fiber of our nation, and in doing so, can bring no positive good.