Follow your image as far as you can no matter how useless you think it is. Push yourself.

My main strength as a young writer was that I had no fear of making mistakes. I knew I would and I knew I could and would learn from them.

In law school they teach you that everything is a contract; well, in poetry everything is a narrative.

Floating to shore...riding a low moon...on a slow cloud.

Black love is Black wealth and they'll probably talk about my hard childhood and never understand that all the while I was quite happy

It is not who you attend school with but who controls the school you attend.

I think that too many strangers were in her [Nina Simone's] life, and not enough people that she knew and loved.