You must invent your own games and teach us old ones how to play.

Poetry is music though, unfortunately, not all music is poetry. Because music has other carriers to take its message - beats, lyrics, singers, bass players - anyone in music can rise to make a major statement but in poetry there are only words to do the work. And they do sometimes have to sweat.

Educational progress is a national concern; education is a private one.

Deal with yourself as a individual, worthy of respect and make everyone else deal with you the same way.

Photographers direct the eye toward a particular object. We who write, one hopes, are directing the heart and the soul.

I’ve not learned the acceptable way of saying you fascinate me...I’ve not even learned how to say I like you without frightening people away-

I am of the generation of segregation. Black Lives Matter is post. I said today, and I will say all the time, "If Nina [Simone] were here, she'd have her Black Lives Matter [T-shirt] on." I think they're great kids. They don't need me or anybody else to tell them what to do.