There is no moon. The stars have risen and fallen and given way to a new spread, to the smeared heart of our Milky Way.

I wanted to walk faster, to run, far as possible from her, from my entire life, from the first day I ever saw her always just a few steps ahead.

Don't fall in love or let anyone's life become more important than your own.

I am a memory house for those I have lost, those I no longer know.

We remained talking, fighting gently or viciously for what seemed like hours, but it was only minutes or perhaps a second, because it was only a dream.

I meditated on my childhood, vague and distant before high school, where Laura still flickered only on the edge of things.

Our past would dissolve. We would move on from each other and from the ghosts of our youth.

My loves have always been seared with this singing, this singing written by death, the way some lands have always been crippled by war.

I inherited this longing. I was addicted to it. And so I was at home with those who wanted and never had enough. I was at home in the places that could never be. The places found only in dreams.

Nightmares always recur, but never our most beautiful dreams.

When I returned to New York, it had already changed. I always wished things could just remain.

Don't lie to protect my feelings. I'd rather you speak the truth with love and respect. I'll be fine!

Most times, your blessings are also your curses. And for me, I have this ability to express myself so clearly with pen and paper, but when it comes to expressing myself verbally, I put up a big wall.

To lie, of course, is to engender insanity.

One of my major competitors was Harold Smith. Smith beat me in 1977. I was loafing during that competition.

I only wanna go up the steps toward a different level of stardom. The BET Awards was one of those steps, the VMAs was another huge step. And the next step, eventually, hopefully, would be the Oscars.

Sometimes the given seems like something taken away.

I don't think I'm particularly sexual, no more than anyone else, though I am very creative.

Change before you're forced to change.

Luke was a little boy in a growing body that felt pain and sadness and fear for his mum, and he always believed he would be safe with his dad.