There is always something to do. There are hungry people to feed, naked people to clothe, sick people to comfort and make well. And while I don't expect you to save the world I do think it's not asking too much for you to love those with whom you sleep, share the happiness of those whom you call friend, engage those among you who are visionary and remove from your life those who offer you depression, despair and disrespect.

Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to the error that counts.

A lot of people refuse to do things because they don't want to go naked... . We as black people, we as people, we as the human species have got to get used to the fact we're not going to be right most of the time, not even when our intentions are good. We've got to go naked and see what happens.

Fanatics are, for one thing, boring and, for another, unreliable. They tend to burn out just when you need them.

If culture was a railroad, I can see the tracks running from the Spirituals to the Hip Hop Nation.

It's not a ladder we're climbing, it's literature we're producing. . . . We cannot possibly leave it to history as a discipline nor to sociology nor science nor economics to tell the story of our people.

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.