Until blacks and whites see each other as brother and sister, we will not have parity. It’s very clear.
Politicians must set their aims for the high ground and according to our various leanings, Democratic, Republican, Independent, we will follow. Politicians must be told if they continue to sink into the mud of obscenity, they will proceed alone.
I love the melodies in the Old Testament, how preachers highlight them when they read from the Scripture. But I was influenced forever by the New Testament. I love the Beatitudes, informing us that the meek shall inherit the earth.
Modesty is a learned affectation. And as soon as life slams the modest person against the wall, that modesty drops.
One of the wonderful things about Oprah: She teaches you to keep on stepping.
I know that I’m not the easiest person to live with. The challenge I put on myself is so great that the person I live with feels himself challenged. I bring a lot to bear, and I don’t know how not to.
I wrote some of the worst poetry west from the Mississippi River, but I wrote. And I finally sometimes got it right.
To take a few nouns, and a few pronouns, and adverbs and adjectives, and put them together, ball them up, and throw them against the wall to make them bounce. That’s what Norman Mailer did. That’s what James Baldwin did, and Joan Didion did, and that’s what I do – that’s what I mean to do.
I would be stupid not to be on my own side. But I’m a human being, too. And I’m on the side of human beings, rather than on the side of crocodiles.
Cooking certain dishes, like roast pork, reminds me of my mother.
When members of a society wish to secure that society’s rich heritage they cherish their arts and respect their artists. The esteem with which we regard the multiple cultures offered in our country enhances our possibilities for healthy survival and continued social development.
We all have that possibility, that potential and that promise of seeing beyond the seeming.
If funkytown was a trailerpark, this guy would be a double-wide.
Mother’s life flowed radiant. Flourescent-tipped waves on incoming tides.
We love and lose in China, we weep on England’s moors, and laugh and moan in Guinea, and thrive on Spanish shores. We seek success in Finland, are born and die in Maine. In minor ways we differ, in major we’re the same.
Each time a dancer moves devoutly or a composer faithfully searches the silence for the veiled melodies, eternity is engaged.
No not me go find someone else to bring down.
The whites were really brutishly ignorant, blitheringly, so they killed people sometimes – just came into the African-American community and maimed people because they didn’t agree with God’s choice for the colors of the people’s skin.
Poetry helps my soul escape its encasement.
You dwell in whitened castles with deep and poisoned moats and cannot hear the curses which fill your children’s throats.