It really wasn't until I was in college when I began to write more and more, and I realized I was scheduling my entire life around my writing

What's a word, a talisman, to hold against the world?

I think that when a poem can move readers across generations and across its specific class or race then it becomes truly classic.

Equality and self-determination should never be divided in the name of religious or ideological fervor.

There are times in life when, instead of complaining, you do something about your complaints.

The library is an arena of possibility, opening both a window into the soul and a door onto the world.

I carry a notebook with me everywhere. But that's only the first step.