My loving sister Mary has always shared the pain and pleasure of my heartbeat in a unique and special way. We have sung our sad and warm songs together.

Powerful people cannot afford to educate the people that they oppress, because once you are truly educated, you will not ask for power. You will take it.

White people think when you love yourself you hate them. No, when I love myself they become irrelevant to me.

What I have learned is that a whole lot of people with degrees don't know a damn thing, and a lot of people with no degrees are brilliant.

If we are going to be masters of our destiny, we must be masters of the ideas that influence that destiny.

Most human behavior is controlled by images. Image is a factor in how people look at themselves and what they use to reflect themselves. The control of images is a major factor in world power.

To be black and beautiful means nothing in this world unless we are black and powerful.

It's time for Black people to stop playing the separating game of geography, of where the slave ship put us down. We must concentrate on where the slave ship picked us up.

We will have taken one giant step forward when we face this reality: Powerful people never teach powerless people how to take their power away from them.

Nothing the European mind ever devised was meant to do anything but to facilitate the European's control over the world.

Whoever is in control of the hell in your life, is your devil.

Without confidence we feel insecure. We replay the doubting voices of our parents on a loop in our own minds.

If you have an optimistic attitude, the world will get better

The only things you can ever truly own cannot be bought with money.

In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.

Well, when you come down to it, I don't see that a reporter could do much to a president, do you?

It's always hard to talk about the culture that you are from, especially with Islam, it is a very sensitive subject and I don't want to be seen to be adding to the problems of Islam and the west.

Obviously radical Islamic terrorism is a big problem, but there are all sorts of kinds of horrific terrorism that take place.

Poetry is a verdict rather than an intention.

What are you? What am I? Those are the questions that constantly persecute and torment me and perhaps also play some part in my art.

I knew him, but I don't understand him.