The artist's role is to raise the consciousness of the people. To make them understand life, the world and themselves more completely. That's how I see it. Otherwise, I don't know why you do it.

A man is either free or he is not. There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom.

There is no justice in America, but it is the fight for justice that sustains you

The torture of being the unseen object, and the constantly observed subject.

My responsibility is to truth and beauty.

In America, black is a country.

I'd say I'm a revolutionary optimist. I believe that the good guys -the people- are going to win.

There is no depth to education without art.

Thought is more important than art....To revere art and have no understanding of the process that forces it into existence, is finally not even to understand what art is.

All thinking people oppose terrorism both domestic & international but one should not be used to cover the other

When I die, the consciousness I carry I will to black people. May they pick me apart and take the useful parts, the sweet meat of my feelings. And leave the bitter bullshit rotten white parts alone.

To commune with God is to understand love because God is love

In a servant leadership culture we learn by choice or example that if we want to be great, we have to serve others respectfully.

Evil doesn't just go away.

In the matters of your life don't take orders, take decisions.

Characters don't belong to anyone, not even the person who plays them.

When someone really goes to tell you something about what they're thinking, they're going to wear that experience with them. That's what you have to share.

America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.

Mr. Lincoln is already defeated. He cannot be re-elected.

It seems to me the structure of the Quartets is too imposed.

The only interesting answers are those that destroy the questions.