Quote collection
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"Some think, "If I marry this guy who's two inches taller than I am and who has a nice bank account, I won't die. If I buy six cars, I won't die. If I hate Jews, I won't die. If I hate homosexuals, I won't die." They think they will increase their life by shunting misery onto somebody else, but it's just the opposite."
"Nathaniel Hawthorne once said that easy reading is damn hard writing."
"One of the saddest things in the world is to see a cynical young person."
"I like to know what's happening."
"Oh, Black known and unknown poets, how often have your auctioned pains sustained us? Who will compute the lonely nights made less lonely by your songs, or by the empty pots made less tragic by your tales? If we were a people much given to revealing secrets, we might raise monuments and sacrifice to the memories of our poets, but slavery cured us of that weakness."
"Love is that condition in the human spirit so profound that it allows me to survive, and better than that, to thrive with passion, compassion, and style."
"I have risked everything to tell the truth. Tell the truth"
"The country didn't get that way in a week; we've had years and years of getting behind in our economy. So President [Barack] Obama stepped into a hellhole and people wanted him to change it as soon as he came in. But he's got his adversaries to deal with in the House and Senate, so it's not easy."
"I had read a Tale of Two Cities and found it up to my standards as a romantic novel. She opened the first page and I heard poetry for the first time in my life...her voice slid in and curved down trough and over the words. She was nearly singing."
"The intensity with which young people live demands that they "blank out" as often as possible."
"In Stamps the segregation was so complete that most Black children didn't really, absolutely know what whites looked like."
"Being physically close to extreme power causes one to experience a giddiness, an intoxication."
"Life sometimes gives you a second chance."
"Yet it is only love which sets us free."
"My heart is so heavy when I see the reality of the Indian reservation and as an American, I know I am, too, responsible."
"Whining is just unbecoming."
"Depending on who I am talking about or who's talking through me - if the person is a kind of hip-hop, or rhythm and blues person, or if the person is a kind of old-fashion gothic, meaning gothic attitude, then that will determine what form the poem will take."
"When it looks like the sun isn't going to shine any more, God puts a rainbow in the clouds. Each one of us has the possibility, the responsibility, the probability to be the rainbow in the clouds."
"Each of us has the power and responsibility to become a rainbow in the clouds."
"Living well is an art that can be developed."