Poetry is probably the last gift economy. Part of the negotiation is to understand that you're going to do something you really want to do, so you're going to take whatever life comes with that.

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?

To enjoy the freshness of life, be simple like water.

Don't shrink your standards, link yourself with those who think and ink like you.

He also telephoned the Real Time Computer Complex on the ground floor of the Operations Wing to ask that an additional big I.B.M. computer be brought onto the line.

Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate As the voyage along thru life 'Tis the will of the soul That decides its goal And not the calm or the strife.

I have no idea what my best material is. Different people like different things. I'll say this: The political stuff gets the press, but the relationship jokes sell all the seats.

Imagining and visualising the situation prepares you for any challenge

The goal is to rise spiritually, not simply to avoid sin.

Humanity is actually much more cooperative and empathic than [it's] given credit for.

It's different, but it's very pretty out here. I suppose they are going to make a big deal of all this.

Church can’t be a place where we feel like a visitor, or somewhere we’re afraid to allow others to see our messes. It’s got to feel like home.