I don't have a life-style, I have a life.

It is not who you attend school with but who controls the school you attend.

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.

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

It's really just interesting to ask: why not? And see where that takes me.

Poetry is the most informative of all of the arts because everything comes down to poetry. No matter what it is we are describing, ultimately we use either a metaphor; or we say "that's poetry in motion." You drink a glass of wine and say, "that's poetry in a bottle." Everything is poetry, so I think we come down to emotional information. And that's what poetry conveys.

I think it's the strength of her music, using art to make a statement. I think it really is. It was not a cheap gift. The gift was an expensive gift for Nina [Simone]. Diamonds are expensive. Her music was expensive. She paid for it, but I think it's her greatest gift.