Photographers direct the eye toward a particular object. We who write, one hopes, are directing the heart and the soul.

We write because we believe the human spirit cannot be tamed and should not be trained.

But nonviolence was never for the oppressor; it was for the oppressed.

Poetry is like air. It's one of the necessary things. Everyone benefits from poetry. And as you know, poetry is international. There are only two things that are truly international, poetry and wine.

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

If you are sitting there waiting for someone to tell you how wonderful you are, you'll never get anything done. Women need to get over being women. I'm tired of that socialization of women; that we are always supposed to be sitting around pleasing somebody.

Black Americans should be given credit for finding probably the perfect weapon; the weapon of the song. And that song continues. Most holocausts don't, so they have this bitterness left over. The phenomenon of the world, as far as Black Americans are considered, is that we are not a bitter people.