“I wish to raise a Black man who will not be destroyed by, nor settle for, those corruptions called power by the white fathers who mean his destruction as surely as they mean mine.”

I am not only a casualty, I am also a warrior.

When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.

We have been raised to fear the yes within ourselves, our deepest cravings.

Whenever the need for some pretense of communication arises, those who profit from our oppression call upon us to share our knowledge with them

If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.

Divide and conquer must become define and empower.

When you reach out and touch other human beings, it doesn’t matter whether you call it therapy or teaching or poetry.

You need to reach down and touch the thing that’s boiling inside of you and make it somehow useful.

You cannot use someone else’s fire. You can only use your own. And in order to do that, you must first be willing to believe that you have it.

The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings.

A choice of pains. That’s what living was all about.

I am still learning – how to take joy in all the people I am, how to use all my selves in the service of what I believe, how to accept when I fail and rejoice when I succeed.

I am still learning – how to take joy in all the people I am, how to use all my selves in the service of what I believe, how to accept when I fail and rejoice when I succeed.

One pays a lot, we all pay a lot, for awareness.

Pain is important: how we evade it, how we succumb to it, how we deal with it, how we transcend it.

Oppression is as American as apple pie.

The industry looks for white actors and actresses, but it’s not the same for black actors. We have to really put the work in.

The projects that I end up doing, that I want to be involved with in any way, have always been projects that will be impactful, for the most part, to my people – to black people.

My job is to be the constructive awakener of the black masses of the world so them know themself and others know what black people suppose to be and where.

I remember how being young and Black and gay and lonely felt. A lot of it was fine, feeling I had the truth and the light and the key, but a lot of it was purely hell.

If the universe is meaningless, so is the statement that it is so. If this world is a vicious trap, so is its accuser, and the pot is calling the kettle black.

You are never too old to have a revelation.

Don’t worry about the Black Panther Party. As long as you keep the beat, we’ll keep on going.

The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.