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

I did a lot of sitting back and thinking about what I wanted for myself and what I wanted for my country: more unity, more support for the arts and more opportunities for young writers from marginalized groups.

Whenever I listen to songs, I rewrite them in my head.

One of the most rewarding moments of my career is when I’m speaking to a child who tells me they have the same speech impediment that I had to overcome and that they’re going to keep writing or sharing their voice after hearing my story.

What’s really funny about being National Youth Poet Laureate is that not everyone even knows it exists.

My mom wanted to make sure I was prepared to grow up with Black skin in America.

I am my own best mirror.

I try to approach reading in front of millions of people as I would reading in somebody’s living room.

Your daily challenge to not be like a boss, but the boss, in all things you.

Let each dawn find us courageous, brought closer, heeding the lights before the fight is over.

Give us the ballot, and we will no longer have to worry the federal government about our basic rights.

I think we run into issues when our online brands are not rooted in who we are, and I think we need to have explicit discussions with ourselves about who we want to be, what we want to represent, and how we want to express that.

I close my eyes and I am with this army of young women standing in a line and I imagine us walking forward together.

To hone my voice, I read everything, from books to cereal boxes, three times: once for fun, the second time to learn something new about the writing craft, and the third time was to improve that piece.

The fight isn’t over – it’s just begun. It’s time to suit up for a battle that might determine the war.

I am the daughter of Black writers who are descended from Freedom Fighters who broke their chains and changed the world. They call me.

See the line where the sky meets the sea.

Christianity was literally born in the Middle East, and we must not forget our Middle Eastern brothers and sisters in Christ.

My folks came to U.S. as immigrants, aliens, and became citizens. I was born in Boston, a citizen, went to Hollywood and became an alien.

Except a man be born again, he will wish one day he had never been born at all.

I maintain that to tell a person they are born again, while they are living in carelessness or sin, is a dangerous delusion.

No birth is an accident, No experience is without meaning, and no life is without value.

I was born in segregated Birmingham, Alabama. I didn’t have a white classmate till we moved to Denver.

I have died and rebirth a million times inside this body, and I have met a million people because of it.

Once you believe in who you are and who you were born to be, it can be very powerful.