“It becomes more and more difficult to avoid the idea of black men as subjects of not just racial profiling but of an insidious form of racial obliteration sanctioned by silence.”

Love taught me to die with dignity that I might come forth anew in splendor. Born once of flesh, then again of fire

September 11, 2001: Citizens of the U.S., besieged by terror’s sting, rose up, weeping glory, as if on eagles’ wings.–from the poem Angel of Remembrance: Candles for September 11, 2001

A poet is a verb that blossoms light in gardens of dawn, or sometimes midnight.

Made applicable to the present, and where visions shape the present into extraordinary possibilities for the future.

Oh what a wonderful soul so bright inside you. Got power to heal the sun’s broken heart, power to restore the moon’s vision too.

Where humanity sowed faith, hope, and unity, joy’s garden blossomed.

Now come the whispers bearing bouquets of moonbeams and sunlight tremblings.

Than they are to hearing anything about acts of love or grace.

In an age when nations and individuals routinely exchange murder for murder

This world’s anguish is no different from the love we insist on holding back.

When the will to learn from the ordinary is present, a seeker may indeed gain entrance into levels of awareness that are extraordinary.

I was reborn a third time to the sound of my name humming haikus in heaven’s mouth.

The uses to which it may be applied are limited only by an individual’s imagination.

As a poet and to accept the fact that life had never given me any choice in the matter. And then I had to discover exactly what that meant.

Friendship fails, Intelligence fails, Humanity: fails.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 laid the foundation for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but it also addressed nearly every other aspect of daily life in a would-be free democratic society.

If you’re a guy, you have absolutely no idea what’s going on at any time in the relationship, ever.

The unadmitted reason why traditional readers are hostile to e-books is that we still hold the superstitious idea that a book is like a soul, and that every soul should have its own body.

Alan Menken took me to his studio and we went through his trunks of songs and put together an album of stuff that people and stuff that people don’t know. I’m very proud with the way it came out.

The idea of it becomes a little freaky if you’re dealing with someone who has trouble differentiating between fantasy and reality, but that’s a concern no matter what kind of movie you’re dealing with.

Multitudes of words are neither an argument of clear ideas in the writer, nor a proper means of conveying clear notions to the reader.

If in 1989 I said, ‘I have an idea: Bottle water and sell it. And charge more than a beer,’ they would have chased me around with a giant butterfly net. The same with paying to watch a television station.

It is not right for painters to think that painting is like prostitution, that ‘first you do it for love, then you do it for others, and finally you do it for money.

For me, the beauty of the blank page, or empty screen,staring up at nine thirty after two cups of coffee and a deep breath remains unique.