What I'm doing ain't about hating White people. It's about loving us.

I have only to break into the tightness of a strawberry, and I see summer - its dust and lowering skies.

If you want to fly, you have to give up the things that weigh you down.

The function of freedom is to free someone else.

Don’t beg anybody for anything, especially love.

There is no such thing as race. None. There is just a human race - scientifically, anthropologically. Racism is a construct, a social construct... it has a social function, racism.

There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent.

All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.

Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.

Live each day like you are celebrating your birthday—that is what life wants for you. Engage with family and friends. Indulge in good food, music and dance. You are precious to life.

Shaman is a spiritual shuttle between three realms of existence: Heaven, Mankind and Earth. He pierces through inter-dimensional veils in order to heal the parts and unite the whole.

I cannot for the life of me understand why small children take so long to grow up. I think they do it deliberately, just to annoy me.

Dark nights are unpleasant, " "Yes, for strangers to travel, ""The clouds are heavy.""Yes, a storm is approaching.

The work of art is already within the block of marble. I just chop off whatever isn't needed.

You wouldn't get rid of the Mona Lisa just because someone painted another picture of a woman smiling.

At one level you're condemned to the voice you have. But within those confines, you have a certain amount of freedom to range among your possible voices.

If you got ears, you gotta listen.

Trenches, hospitals, the common grave--there are no other possibilities.

You've read some of the poems in this new unpublished book [Walker's Alphabet], e.g., the poem "C." I have a number of poems whose titles are letters of the alphabet: A, B, C, D, E, F.