For the poet the credo or doctrine is not the point of arrival but is, on the contrary, the point of departure for the metaphysical journey.

Cherish your human connections: your relationships with friends and family.

What I like about cities is that everything is king size, the beauty and the ugliness.

Twentieth-century Russian literature has produced nothing special except perhaps one novel and two stories by Andrei Platonov, who ended his days sweeping streets.

How delightful to find a friend in everyone.

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.

For darkness restores what light cannot repair.

I sit in the dark. And it would be hard to figure out which is worse; the dark inside, or the darkness out.

Geography blended with time equals destiny.

Life—the way it really is—is a battle not between good and bad, but between bad and worse

Poetry is what is gained in translation.

Acquiring knowledge is a form of imitation.

Hip-hop is more about attaining wealth. People respect success. They respect big. They don't even have to like your music. If you're big enough, people are drawn to you.

I love Boston and I always will. I'll always have terrific memories and great fans here.

The half-life of love is forever.

Only two people have been on the cover of Time Magazine in bare feet. I'm one, the other is Gandhi.

Looking out at this quarter of a million people,... I truly believed, at that moment, it was possible that human beings could join together to make a positive social change.

I think it's a very important function of art to challenge accepted reality, especially when that reality is created by powerful interest groups.

That's the hardest thing about doing sequels - you've lost the element of surprise.

You know the hardest thing to do in Hollywood is burn bridges. There is usually some sucker who still likes me. There is usually some sucker who will still work with me.

I didn't realize how much me hiding my sexuality also meant that I hid a lot of just my identity as a person.