“Life must be aromatic. There must be scent, somehow there must be some.”

Abortions will not let you forget. You remember the children you got that you did not get.

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.

Life sucks, but in a beautiful kind of way.

God’s ultimate goal for your life on earth is not comfort, but character development. He wants you to grow up spiritually and become like Christ.

To be financially wealthy you must have a purpose for your life. In other words, without purpose, you’ll never know when you have enough money, and you can never be financially wealthy.

I think that if you’re passionate about something and you’re driven and you’re focused, then you can pretty much do anything that you want to do in life.

Lovesick, bitter and hardened heart. Aching, waiting for life to start

I’ve gotten my personal life all the way intact and made sure that it’s straight. Without that, you have no foundation. Your building is going to crumble.

I never had a drink in my life. I don’t smoke or anything.

No big shocker that following Jesus is costly. The best things in life always are.