Honestly, I don't always want to get up in the mornings, but I do anyway.

Hip-hop is still cool at a party. But to me, hip-hop has never been strictly a party; it is also there to elevate consciousness.

I think that the heart is a lot like those wonderful fruit, like coconut and mangoes, you know, you have to break the skin, you have to break it open to get to the good part.

she stuck a bookmark in my heart and walked away

If we're gonna progress as a people we are going to realise that, as one of my favourite poets says, the other is a lie. There are no other people. Race is a social construct.

Sometimes our thoughts and feelings are our most prized possessions... and then there are times to let go of your possessions and wander.

I surrendered my beliefs and found myself at the tree of life injecting my story into the veins of leaves only to find that stories like forests are subject to seasons

There is nothing more negligent than attempting to address a problem one finds on a branch than by censoring the leaves.

I think that good writing is based on good reading. Maybe it's not about writing today, maybe it's about reading today. Maybe it's about finding the sort of book you would never read.

I dance for no reason, for reasons you can't dance, Call me an activist of intellectualized circumstance You can't learn my steps until you unlearn your thoughts Spirit, soul, can't be store-bought.

My love is my soul's imagination. How do I love you? Imagine.

There is little that can withstand a man who can conquer himself.

Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.

What is national freedom if not a people’s inner freedom to cultivate its abilities along the beaten path of its history?

Memories were like sunshine. They warmed you up and left a pleasant glow, but you couldn't hold them.

I think the call of the inward life starts here. Solitude helps you differentiate, define the borders of the self. Solitude helps you figure our where everybody else stops and you begins.

80% of people's problems are about how they feel about themselves.

We have to make sure the music and the message and the words and all the elements come through in our songs and every time we appear in public.

Rejoice that man is hurled, From change to change unceasingly, His soul's wings never furled!

But I always had the ability to say no. That's how I called my own shots.

I've had a man and I've had a woman, and there's got to be something better.