“The oration of poetry, I consider to be its own art form and tradition.”

You don’t have to be a poet, you don’t have to be a politician or be in the White House to make an impact with your words. We all have this capacity to find solutions for the future.

Poetry is the lens we use to interrogate the history we stand on and the future we stand for.

If a woman doesn’t give herself permission, who will?

No matter how you say it, the hill we climb is a hill we climb together.

I think it made me all that much stronger of a writer when you have to teach yourself how to say words from scratch.

When you’re someone who’s lived a life where certain resources were scarce, you always feel like abundance is forbidden fruit.

What a day. What a life. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you

When you have to teach yourself how to say sounds, when you have to be highly concerned about pronunciation, it gives you a certain awareness of sonics, of the auditory experience.

It was so incredible meeting Lady Gaga. I mean I’m gaga for Gaga, literally. We kind of just each flew to each other like magnets after the ceremony ended and we were both just crying and hugging.

Poetry is – it’s an art form, but, to me, it’s also a weapon, it’s also an instrument. It’s the ability to make ideas that have been known, felt and said. And that’s a real, I think, type of duty for the poet.

We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace and the norms and notions of what just is, isn’t always justice.

It wasn’t until I was named Youth Poet Laureate of L.A. in high school though that I officially began calling myself a poet. I just always loved writing, period.

We know. We believe. And we act, because it is our civic duty.

When they tell you to go back to where you come from, tell them proudly that this is where you come from.

I was writing since I can remember – I just didn’t know it was poetry yet, or that writing could be a career.

I was born early, along with my twin, and a lot of times, for infants, that can lead to learning delays.

Errors are not in the art but in the artificers.

The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions that have been hidden by the answers.

Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.

The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.

To encourage literature and the arts is a duty which every good citizen owes to his country.

I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy; but most importantly music, for the patterns in music and all the arts are the keys to learning.

Beauty perishes in life, but is immortal in art.

Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.