Poetry is the most mistaught subject in any school because we teach poetry by form and not by content.

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.

For most of my life, I've thought of myself as pretty cool.

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.

If now isn't a good time for the truth I don't see when we'll get to it.

Schools should be integrated by race and by class.

Everybody that loves freedom loves Harriet Tubman because she was determined not only to be free, but to make free as many people as she could.