I speak to the black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition.

If men are God's gift to women, then God must really love gag gifts.

Without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently.

There are those who say that poets should use her and his art to change the world. I'd agree with that, but I think everybody should do that. I think the chef and the baker and the candlestick maker - I think everybody should be hoping to make it a better world.

Reality has changed chameleonlike before my eyes so many times that I have learned, or am learning, to trust almost anything except what appears to be so.

I don't think modesty is a very good virtue, if it is a virtue at all. A modest person will drop the modesty in a minute. It's a learned affectation.

A joyful spirit is evidence of a grateful heart.