In the name of motherhood and fatherhood and education and good manners, we threaten and suffocate and bind and ensnare and bribe and trick children into wholesale emulation of our ways.

Bisexuality means I am free and I am as likely to want to love a woman as I am likely to want to love a man, and what about that? Isn't that what freedom implies?

To tell the truth is to become beautiful, to begin to love yourself, value yourself. And that's political, in its most profound way.

Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.

Like a lot of Black women, I have always had to invent the power my freedom requires.

We do not deride the fears of prospering white America. A nation of violence and private property has every reason to dread the violated and the deprived.

Maybe the purpose of being here, wherever we are, is to increase the durability and occasions of love among and between peoples.

Overall, white men run America. From nuclear armaments to the filth and jeopardy of New York City subways to the cruel mismanagement of health care, is there anything to boast about?

Body and soul, Black America reveals the extreme questions of contemporary life, questions of freedom and identity: How can I be who I am?

To tell the truth is to become beautiful.

If you are free, you are not predictable and you are not controllable.

The degree of concentration you give to your dream will determine your success percentage!

Every time the long-forgotten people of the past are remembered, they are born again!

I do not expect the white media to create positive black male images.

Love who you are, and you're good enough, and you don't need to feel like you need to apologize for who you are, and you don't need to feel like you need to try to be someone you're not.

I'm a human being. I'm not a piece of property. I'm not a consignment of goods.

We're out of cocktail olives, it's a tragedy of historic proportions, but we're coping because we're Americans.

I will not calm down!

I was frightened to go forward, but I was even more frightened of going back.

I like stuff that sounds big and full and makes your head trip and your body react.

Never adopt an attitude of indifference, for if you do you will suffer for it. The weight will grow heavier and heavier.