My doom is, I love thee still. Let no man dream but that I love thee still.
I feel much safer faced with a blank sheet of paper than I do with a real person.
The very things I used to be told off for - daydreaming, exaggerating, making mistakes, wild guessing, contradicting, spying, being obsessive, being reckless - for these, suddenly, I am being praised.
There's the space that you soar into, the space that you sometimes break through to, and hang in. A sort of gasp or gap.
Being a poet is like having an invisible partner. It isn't easy. But you can't live without it either. Talent is only 10 per cent. The rest is obsession.
I'm not so sure that the value of art is all it is cracked up to be.
I step naked into the shower of truth - whole-hearted, bloody-minded, utterly selfish, no longer even pretending to enjoy or understand anything.
We need to get better at voting and be a voice for the people who do not have one.
I've been called to the slums of the streets and the ditches of the world.
Perhaps that is the secret. It is not what we do, so much as why we do it.
If you think black people have a motivation problem, open up a Wal-Mart and advertise a thousand jobs. Watch 5,000 people show up.