“Do not be afraid of no, Who has so far, so very far to go.”

Be yourself. Don’t imitate other poets. You are as important as they are.

She was learning to love moments. To love moments for themselves.

It frightens me to realize that, if I had died before the age of fifty, I would have died a ‘Negro’ fraction.

Good health is a duty to yourself, to your contemporaries, to your inheritors, to the progress of the world.

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.

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

I need to remind myself all the time that being afraid of things going wrong, is not the way to make things right. All fear has ever done is try destroy any existing hope I have.

I’ve spent a lot of time holding onto things and people that brought me misery because I was afraid of the void that may be there once I let go. I know now my voids were just as illusionary as the fear and insecurities that created them.

The violence and injustice of the rulers of mankind is an ancient evil, for which, I am afraid, the nature of human affairs can scarce admit a remedy.

Don’t be afraid to rebrand yourself.

I am not afraid to allow myself to fall, rise, grow and learn.

Do what you are afraid to do.

I think that women are afraid to be vulnerable because they think it makes them look weak.

Because you aren’t afraid to kiss the dirt (and consequently dare to climb the sky)