Talent is a burden not a joy. I am not of this planet. I do not come from you. I am not like you.

You've got to learn to leave the table When love's no longer being served".

I tell you what freedom is to me: no fear.

What kept me sane was knowing that things would change, and it was a question of keeping myself together until they did.

You can't help it. An artist's duty, as far as I'm concerned, is to reflect the times.

Life is short. People are not easy to know. They're not easy to know, so if you don't tell them how you feel, you're not going to get anywhere, I feel.

You have to learn to get up from the table when love is not being served.

How do you explain what it feels like to get on the stage and make poetry that you know sinks into the hearts and souls of people who are unable to express it

There's no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were.

Slavery has never been abolished from America's way of thinking.

The worst thing about that kind of prejudice... is that while you feel hurt and angry and all the rest of it, it feeds you self-doubt. You start thinking, perhaps I am not good enough.

There are things that are so serious that you can only joke about them.

He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.

I cannot forgive my friends for dying: I do not find these vanishing acts of theirs at all amusing.

God has entrusted me with myself.

Most people can stay excited for two or three months. A few people can stay excited for two or three years. But a winner will stay excited for twenty or thirty years...or as long as it takes to win.

I'm memorable, it's true.

Selflessness. It should be the basis of every relationship. If a person truly cares about you, they'll get more pleasure from the way they make you feel, rather than the way you make them feel.

There is one evident, indubitable manifestation of the Divinity, and that is the laws of right which are made known to the world through Revelation.

Grammar is...the pole you grab to get your thoughts up on their feet and walking.

Compassion is the enemy. Mercy defeats us