“Tell the truth. Sing with passion. Work with laughter. Love with heart. 'Cause that's all that matters in the end.”

“Freedom's just another word for "nothing left to lose".”

“Her close friends have gathered.Lord, ain't it a shameGrieving togetherSharing the blame.But when she was dyingLord, we let her down.There's no use cryin'It can't help her now.The party's all overD...”

“I'd trade all my tomorrows for one single yesterday.”

“I am grateful every morning I wake up. I've a big family full of kids, who laugh all the time and love each other.”

“'Sunday Morning Coming Down' is probably the most directly autobiographical thing I'd written. In those days, I was living in a slum tenement that was torn down afterwards, but it was $25 a month i...”

“There was only the dark infinity in which nothing was. And something happened. At the distance of a star something happened, and everything began. The Word did not come into being, but it was. It d...”

“The recipe for great work is: very exacting taste, plus the ability to gratify it.”

“Now there is a final reason I think that Jesus says, "Love your enemies." It is this: that love has within it a redemptive power. And there is a power there that eventually transforms individuals. ...”

“I sought to hear the voice of God and climbed the topmost steeple, but God declared: "Go down again - I dwell among the people.”

“We limit ourselves and God who wants to work through us”

“God can only work through those who have totally identified themselves with His will and purpose”

“No black woman writer in this culture can write "too much". Indeed, no woman writer can write "too much"...No woman has ever written enough.”

“When you reduce a woman to writing, she makes you think of a thousand other women”

“I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”