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.

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.

Being Black and poor is, I think, radically different from being anything else and poor. Poor, to most Blacks, is a state of mind. Those who accept it are poor; those who struggle are middle class.

Ever been kidnapped by a poet if i were a poet i'd kidnap you put you in my phrases and meter.

Life is a process where people mix and match, fall apart and come back together.

I hope that, reading 'Rosa,' people will remember their own family and friends and talk about what they did and did not do.

I would put books on par with chocolate, because a good book is delicious.