To be young, gifted and black!

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.

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

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.

Apparently the rarest commodities on earth are truth and honesty.

i'm only human, & inadequacy is what makes us human, & if we was perfect we wdnt have nothin to strive for, so you might as well go on & forgive me pretty baby, cause i'm sorry

These words are not just destined to be shared with the mind - but, the Soul.

It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is.

I used alcohol for my panic attacks, to manage stressors.

I think there's been an overestimation of how much the press can shape coverage and people's decisions.

There is a gyre of discarded floating plastic the size of the continental USA in the ocean. In it, plastic trash outweighs plankton 40 to 1.

Basically there is no difference between whites and blacks, browns and yellows. I decided to think no more of people as Northerners and Southerners.

I've never sought success in order to get fame and money; it's the talent and the passion that count in success.

Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits. That's it in a nutshell ... In order to be creative you have to know how to prepare to be creative.