The only advice [for new writers and poets] I can offer is to be yourself: not the self someone else wants you to be, but the self you are. Enjoy yourself and your life. But most of all travel and eat. That's how we learn.

Nothing improves your writing, I think, as much as your keeping writing.

and sometimes I sit down at my typewriter and I think not of someone cause there isn't anyone to think about and i wonder is it worth it

I really don't think life is about the I-could-have-beens. Life is only about the I-tried-to-do. I don't mind the failure but I can't imagine that I'd forgive myself if I didn't try.

There are some things we do simply because the doing is a success.

I knew Stokely [Carmichael] and them, but when you got to that, you saw that Nina Simone started to take up their burden. She started to preach for them. She was taking on the burden of "I want to tell the people."

I am honest; I try to be truthful. I like people and wish us well. We are not always deserving of our own best wishes.