Poetry is the most informative of all of the arts because everything comes down to poetry. No matter what it is we are describing, ultimately we use either a metaphor; or we say "that's poetry in motion." You drink a glass of wine and say, "that's poetry in a bottle." Everything is poetry, so I think we come down to emotional information. And that's what poetry conveys.

Iife/personality must be taken as a total entity. All of your life is all of your life, and no one incident stands alone.

But nonviolence was never for the oppressor; it was for the oppressed.

If I can't do what I want to do, then my job is to not do what I want to do. It's not the same thing, but it's the best thing I can do.

And you will understand all too soon That you, my children of battle, are your heroes

I always loved English because whatever human beings are, we are storytellers. It is our stories that give a light to the future. When I went to college I became a history major because history is such a wonderful story of who we think we are. English is much more a story of who we really are.

I wish that she had had a black loon because I don't think that Nina [Simone] did. I have always had - I've been very fortunate - a group of little old ladies that I love and who love me, and who turned and to whom I turn at different times.