“Very early in life I became fascinated with the wonders language can achieve. And I began playing with words.”

I like the concentration, the crush; I like working with language, as others like working with clay, or notes.

Even if you are not ready for day it cannot always be night.

Do not desire to fit in. Desire to oblige yourselves to lead.

When white and black meet today, sometimes there is a ready understanding that there has been an encounter between two human beings. But often there is only, or chiefly, an awareness that Two Colors are in the room.

It is brave to be involved. To be not fearful to be unresolved.

When I start writing a poem, I don’t think about models or about what anybody else in the world has done.

To be in love Is to touch things with a lighter hand. In yourself you stretch, you are well.

I swear to keep the dead upon my mind, / Disdain for all time to be overglad.

Beware the easy griefs / that fool and fuel nothing.

Writing is a delicious agony.

Truth-tellers are not always palatable. There is a preference for candy bars.

The music is in minors.

No man can give me any word but Wait.

We don’t ask a flower any special reason for its existence. We just look at it and are able to accept it as being something different from ourselves.

When you love a man, he becomes more than a body. His physical limbs expand, and his outline recedes, vanishes. He is rich and sweet and right. He is part of the world, the atmosphere, the blue sky and the blue water.

When you use the term minority or minorities in reference to people, you’re telling them that they’re less than somebody else.

Achievable goals are the first step to self improvement.

To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to.

There is no pain worse than not achieving a dream when it is your fault. If God did not want you to have it, that is one thing. But if you do not get what you desire because you are lazy, there is no pain worse than that.

There is no harm in dreaming of becoming the world’s best player. It is all about trying to be the best. I will keep working hard to achieve it but it is within my capabilities.

If you want to achieve anything in this world, you have to get used to the idea that not everyone will like you.

If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it – then I can achieve it.

Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.

Success is not achieved by winning all the time. Real success comes when we rise after we fall.