People expect black women to be angry, irrationally so, without reason. They think we are animals and we go around like the Wild Things.

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.

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.

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

Where does one run to escape from feelings?

Yet, as only New Yorkers know, if you can get through the twilight, you'll live through the night.

I used to like to make myself sad, so I would listen to Bill Callahan as Smog.

The purpose of our creation is obvious: to reach our utmost goals of belief, knowledge, and spirituality; to reflect on the universe, humanity, and God, and thus prove our value as human beings.

We want to get rid of the militarist not simply because he hurts and kills, but because he is an intolerable thick-voiced blockhead who stands hectoring and blustering in our way of achievement.

I just always look for stuff that has a character-driven thing.

Dreading that climax of all human ills the inflammation of his weekly bills.

We do not invest in advertising... So racing is the best advertising for Ferrari.

Punishment is the root of violence on our planet.

Listen to what people say when they are mad, that's when the truth comes out.