Age is getting to know all the ways the world turns, so that if you cannot turn the world the way you want, you can at least get out of the way so you won't get run over.

I have to go and say farewell to all the countries that I have been to, if I can. I am 73 now, it is taxing on me.

I have one thing in common with the emerging black nations of Africa: We both have voices, and we are discovering what we can do with them.

In the West the past is like a dead animal. It is a carcass picked at by the flies that call themselves historians and biographers. But in my culture the past lives. My people feel this way in part because death does not separate us from our ancestors.

There are three things I was born with in this world, and there are three things I will have until the day I die-hope, determination, and song.

In the mind, in the heart, I was always home. I always imagined, really, going back home.

Age is getting to know all the ways the world turns, so that if you cannot turn the world the way you want, you can at least get out of the way so you won't get run over.