If you admit to being racist, it says you acknowledge that you are being driven by projections and stereotypes that were formed in the creation of our country. Racism is deeply rooted in America.

Because white men can’t police their imaginations, black men are dying.

I want to believe that in any relational moment a person understands that the other person in front of them is just another human being.

You can’t put the past behind you. It’s buried in you; it’s turned your flesh into its own cupboard. Not everything remembered is useful but it all comes from the world to be stored in you.

The past is a life sentence, a blunt instrument aimed at tomorrow.

Define loneliness? Yes. It's what we can't do for each other.

Poetry has no investment in anything besides openness. It's not arguing a point. It's creating an environment.

Sometimes the art pieces I gravitate toward speak to me in terms of narrative, at other times they speak to me in terms of mood.

The worst injury is feeling you don't belong so much / to you.

Where is the safest place when that place / must be someplace other than in the body?

I am invested in keeping present the forgotten bodies.

If you love books enough, books will love you back.

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

To change your language you must change your life.

Do people conform to the instructions of us old ones? Each thinks he must know best about himself, and thus many are lost entirely.

Safety razors make it hard to grow beards in America: America would be a better place if there were a few bearded, savage, terrible old men.

I want to play in a place people want to hear me.

Trees are the largest and most spiritually advanced plants on Earth. They are constantly in meditation. Subtle energy is their natural language.

Like there's actually a need for Greenland. You can get ice at 7-Eleven.

Listen, were losing so much manufacturing, all over the United States.

One of the things I love about music is live performance.