I do not think [poetry] is more, or less, necessary than food, shelter, health, education, decent working conditions. It is as necessary.

The connections between and among women are the most feared, the most problematic, and the most potentially transforming force on the planet.

Change is not a threat to your life, but an invitation to live.

There must be those among whom we can sit down and weep and still be counted as warriors.

My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.

We must use what we have to invent what we desire.

Courage is not defined by those who fought and did not fall, but by those who fought, fell and rose again.

The beauty of darkness is how it lets you see.

If you are trying to transform a brutalized society into one where people can live in dignity and hope, you begin with the empowering of the most powerless. You build from the ground up.

Until we know the assumptions in which we are drenched, we cannot know ourselves.

Language is power... Language can be used as a means of changing reality.

That is what all creatures great and small are made of. Leftover stardust. An atom exploded, and all the dust became the planets, the stars...and us. That's all anything amounts to.

All of what the government said is lies upon lies.

I've never wanted an Oscar, although they are reassuring to an actor who doesn't know how really great he is.

I ain't askin' nobody for nuttin' if I cain't get it on my own.

A donkey appears to me like a horse translated into Dutch.

Mama says it's okay to be on the quiet side—if quiet means you're listening, watching, taking it all in.

We cannot expect too little from man nor too much from God.

And with Aaron, I'd have to find a reason not to work with him.

There is but one art, to omit! Oh, if I knew how to omit I would ask no other knowledge. A man who knows how to omit would make an Iliad of a daily paper.