Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.

I'm grateful to intelligent people. That doesn't mean educated. That doesn't mean intellectual. I mean really intelligent. What black old people used to call 'mother wit' means intelligence that you had in your mother's womb. That's what you rely on. You know what's right to do.

Seek patience and passion in equal amounts. Patience alone will not build the temple. Passion alone will destroy its walls.

Would you deny your son or your daughter the ecstasy of finding someone to love?

Depending on who I am talking about or who's talking through me - if the person is a kind of hip-hop, or rhythm and blues person, or if the person is a kind of old-fashion gothic, meaning gothic attitude, then that will determine what form the poem will take.

At the end of the day people won't remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.

I wasn't a pretty girl. I was six feet tall at 15, you know.