Nobody supported me; my family thought I had gone crazy. They thought, you crazy gangster, you crazy drug addict, now you want to be a writer? That's it! They totally gave up on me after that.

When you win, we win; but when you go down, you go down alone.

Nobody had books at home. My dad was a very educated person, so he would have books at home. All Spanish books. That helped. Most of my homies had no books at home.

The more you know, the more you owe.

I'm not really anti-gang - I was a gang member and so was my son. I'm pro-youth, pro-community, pro-family, pro-arts, and pro-peace.

There are choices you have to make not just once

Eventually I went back to high school. I went to a coaching center in my neighborhood. I had to leave the homeless situation because it was so bad and I knew that I was falling deeper and deeper.

I've always been prepared to write about the hard things. Only for healing, teaching, and enlightening purposes not to hurt or disparage anyone.

In order to stay out of trouble I worked in industry. You can't even do that nowadays; there were all those factories.

I was kind of a weird homie; I was a weird kid. Nobody in my family loved books. I'm the only one.

In darkness God's truth shines most clear.

To 'choose' dogma and faith over doubt and experience is to throw out the ripening vintage and to reach greedily for the Kool-Aid.

Three things are neededFor humanity to co-exist:Truth, peace and basic needs.Everything else -Is irrelevant.

You gain strength every time you pray.

The dead have existed for as long as the living, give or take a few years. But what good has that done them?

If the generous ideas of youth are too often over- clouded by the sordid views of after-life, that scarcely proves them to be false

I'd do a show about garbagemen if it was good!

When I was a teenager in the late 30's and early 40's, electronics wasn't a word. You were interested in radio if you were interested in electronics.

The greatest problem in the world today is intolerance. Everyone is so intolerant of each other.

Why don't you pair'em up in threes?