To write a blues song is to regiment riots and pluck gems from graves.

I died in 1960 from a prison sentence and poetry brought me back to life.

We dreamed of doing but could not bring ourselves to do.

Each Fall the graves of my grandfathers call me, the brown hills and red gullies of mississippi send out their electric messages, galvanizing my genes.

Love is a rock against the wind. Not soft like silk and lace.

I boil my tears in a twisted spoon And dance like an angel on the point of a needle.

Black Poets should live--not leap From steel bridges, like the white boys do.

Let all Black Poets die as trumpets, And be buried in the dust of marching feet.

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it.

If I could make money making armpit farts, I would. But since I can't, I teach. And write.

To feel valued to know even if only once in a while that you can do a job well is an absolutely marvelous feeling.

It is not the office of a novelist to show us how to behave ourselves; it is not the business of fiction to teach us anything.

People on the pathway to enlightenment become very successful in whatever they approach, because they have learned to discipline the mind.

We do have to worry about North Korea. They continue to develop their nuclear weapons capability, and they're working very hard on their ballistic missile capability.

A friend's bitter words seem to us more poisonous than a serpent's teeth.

Love: You're not meant to wait for it. You're not meant to search for it. You're meant to generate it.

When men do not run they are likely to die prematurely from dysfunction of the heart and vascular systems or from disabling chronic disease.

People talk about dysfunctional families; I've never seen any other kind.