I am honest; I try to be truthful. I like people and wish us well. We are not always deserving of our own best wishes.

Poetry and music are very good friends. Like mommies and daddies and strawberries and cream - they go together.

If you're a writer, the answer to everything is yes.

I’m a big fan of history—applying the lessons as well as the joys and sadness. If we pay attention, we would see how we affect each other. In terms of time, we are not that far from one another. If we were to look back a century, it would seem like a long time; but, if we look at it by decades then it’s only 10 years, and by generations it’s only five.

We [Black people] have always used our creativity to battle and we're not the only ones. Black Americans are certainly leaders in that simply because we were denied education and dealt with enforced illiteracy. But people seem to always forget that literacy is not the only way of learning things or conveying knowledge.

Baseball is already the world's most tranquil sport. It is probably the only active sport where you are not seriously required to be alive to play.

We are less lonely when we connect. Art is connection.