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."

Life is a marvelous, transitory adventure.

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.

I like what they're doing. I think they're doing a good job, and I know that a lot of people are upset by them. These are great young men and women, and they're bold, and they are saying to America, "Something's going to change." I'm very proud of them.

I try to impress upon my students the importance of looking, listening... paying attention, in other words. You must pay attention.

I prefer her [Nina Simone's] jazz period much more so than her folk period.

If i can't have what i want . . . then my job is to want what i've got and be satisfied that at least there is something more to want