“Life is a big sea full of many fish. I let down my nets and pulled. I’m still pulling.”

I am the American heartbreak- The rock on which Freedom Stumped its toe.

I went down to the river, I set down on the bank. I tried to think but couldn’t, So I jumped in and sank.

Life is an egg you have to be patient and careful with it or it will break.

Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

Folks, I’m telling you, birthing is hard and dying is mean- so get yourself a little loving in between.

Teach us all to do right, Lord, please, and to get along together with that atom bomb on this earth because I do not want it to fall on me-nor Thee-nor anybody living. Amen!

When you turn the corner And you run into yourself Then you know that you have turned All the corners that are left.

The only way to get a thing done is to start to do it, then keep on doing it, and finally you’ll finish it.

Negro blood is sure powerful, because just one drop of black blood makes a colored man. One drop–you are a Negro! . . . Black is powerful.

Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro – and beautiful!

Politics in any country in the world is dangerous. For the poet, politics in any country had better be disguised as poetry. Politics can be the graveyard of the poet. And only poetry can be his resurrection.

Peace We passed their graves: The dead men there, Winners or losers, Did not care. In the dark They could not see Who had gained The victory.

An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.

Politics can be the graveyard of the poet. And only poetry can be his resurrection.

I did not believe political directives could be successfully applied to creative writing . . . not to poetry or fiction, which to be valid had to express as truthfully as possible the individual emotions and reactions of the writer.

I do not want no pretty woman. First thing you know, you fall in love with her-then you got to kill somebody about her. She’ll make you so jealous, you’ll bust!

The essence of this thing you do should be that it makes a big difference to the person receiving the gift. up.

I said “I’ve had pho,” and then he goes, “Oh, what do you get, the number one big bowl?” I was like, “Come on, man

Just the slightest turn toward the inside is a very big thing.

We’re all waiting for the opportunity to do big films but you have to wait your turn – unless you get offered something like Twilight when you’re 20! Otherwise, you just have to keep slogging away.

I hope baseball doesn’t get to the point where everyone’s saying, ‘He takes it [steroids]. He takes it. He takes it!’ because not all of us do. I’ve been big my whole life, and I’ll always be big. That’s all natural.

I find auditioning to be a very illusive process, where actors come in with this really big result with no process, so it’s a lie already at work.

The big secret about Art is that no one wants it to be true.

People always – when you rise, whenever you’re getting to a point where you’re a very big band, which is a very rare thing, there are always going to be people that aren’t going to like you.