This Cruel Age has deflected me.

My shadow serves as the friend I crave

You will hear thunder and remember me, and think: she wanted storms.

Italy is a dream that keeps returning for the rest of your life.

All has been looted, betrayed, sold; black death's wing flashed ahead.

It is unbearably painful for the soul to love silently.

Sunset in the ethereal waves: I cannot tell if the day is ending, or the world, or if the secret of secrets is inside me again.

You will hear thunder and remember me, And think: she wanted storms. The rim Of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson, And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire.

Forgive me, that I manage badly, Manage badly but live gloriously, That I leave traces of myself in my songs, That I appeared to you in waking dreams.

Call me a sinner, Mock me maliciously: I was your insomnia, I was your grief.

Real tenderness can't be confused, It's quiet and can't be heard.

Christianity is a battle not a dream

There is no shame in confusion or fear. "There was only shame in the silence fear had produced. . . . It was the silence that betrayed us."

Initially I started writing because I felt like I didn't fit in. I just moved to a new school and I felt quite lonely. I think that's where it all started for me.

I think - particularly in terms of the destiny of Africans in North America - our destiny has also been shaped indelibly by global alliances.

My mother was a champion high-jumper. My three brothers are basketball players. We've all been very athletic.

At the age of 12 my ambition was to become a gangster. To be a wiseguy. Being a wiseguy was better than being President of the United States. To be a wiseguy was to own the world.

What do you call those knobby things on doors that help you open them?

I'm not a fan of reality shows, but I am a fan of people who use their brains and skills and hard work to outsmart people, not to steal someone's man or get drunk on TV.

Blaming society makes it awfully easy for a person of weak character to shrug off his own responsibility for his actions.

This first glance of a soul which does not yet know itself is like dawn in the heavens; it is the awakening of something radiant and unknown.