“and if iif i ever let love gobecause the hatred and the whisperingsbecome a phantom dictate i o-bey in lieu of impulse and realities(the blossoming flamingos of mywild mimosa trees)then let love fr...”

“I am a feminist, and what that means to me is much the same as the meaning of the fact that I am Black; it means that I must undertake to love myself and to respect myself as though my very life de...”

“And I got to thinking about the moral meaning of memory, per se. And what it means to forget, what it means to fail to find and preserve the connection with the dead whose lives you, or I, want or ...”

“... mommahelp meturn the face of historyto your face.- Getting Down To Get Over - Dedicated To My Mother”

“To tell the truth is to become beautiful, to begin to love yourself, value yourself. And that's political, in its most profound way.”

“Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.”

“If a man does not work passionately - even furiously - at being the best in the world at what he does, he fails his talent, his destiny, and his God.”

“I mean a man whose hopes and aims may sometimes lie (as most men's sometimes do, I dare say) above the ordinary level, but to whom the ordinary level will be high enough after all if it should prov...”

“Not everything you're good at is what you're called to do.”

“Yes, a war is inevitable. Firstly, there's you fellows who can't be trusted. And then there's the multitude who mean to have bathrooms and white enamel. Millions of them; all over the world. Not me...”

“Well-being is attained little by little, and nevertheless is no little thing itself.”

“Be not the first by whom the new is tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside, is a safe rule for those who would always retain the good opinion of that all-powerful, but somewhat unintelligent,...”