“I’m so tired of waiting, aren’t you, for the world to become good and beautiful and kind?”

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.

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

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!

A world I dream where black or white, Whatever race you be, Will share the bounties of the Earth And every man is free.

Good morning, Revolution: You’re the very best friend I ever had. We gonna pal around together from now on.

Never look for a worm in the apple of your eye.

A picture, to be an interesting picture, must be more than a picture, otherwise it is only a reproduction of an object, and not an object of value in itself.

I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I’m dead. I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.

A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood.

I want you to know, that you deserve the best. You’re beautiful.

Desperate for answers, I go searching in the stars. I ask them: on a scale of one to catastrophe, how beautiful would they say we are?

Sometimes, a defeat can be more beautiful and satisfying than certain victories. The English have a point in insisting that it matters not who won or lost, but how you played the game.

My smile is my favorite part of my body. I think a smile can make your whole body. I want women to know that it’s ok. That you can be whatever size you are and be beautiful inside and out.

I used every color on my palette to bring you back to life. Now you paint the most beautiful rainbows in someone else’s skies.

I hope that my work will encourage self expression in others and stimulate the search for beauty and creative excitement in the great world around us.

I believe in beauty. I believe in stones and water, air and soil, people and their future and their fate.