In a world so rife with vulgarity, with brutality and violence, love exists. I’m grateful to know that it exists.

Someone was hurt before you, wronged before you, hungry before you, frightened before you, beaten before you, humiliated before you, raped before you... yet, someone survived... You can do anything you choose to do.

Whenever something went wrong when I was young - if I had a pimple or if my hair broke - my mom would say, 'Sister mine, I'm going to make you some soup.' And I really thought the soup would make my pimple go away or my hair stronger.

I wrote some of the worst poetry west from the Mississippi River, but I wrote. And I finally sometimes got it right.

Exchange love for hate...Thereby, making the present comfortable and the future promising.

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: 'I'm with you kid. Let's go.'

I believe what I have to say is important, and I believe the people coming to hear me are important, and so the occasion of itself alone has an importance, which forces me to stare down my nerves.