“This morning I paid seventy cents for two little old dried-up slivers of bacon and one cockeyed egg. It took me till noon to get my appetite back.”

Summer was made to give you a taste of what hell is like. Winter was made for landladies to charge high rents and keep cold radiators and make a fortune off of poor tenants.

I am the American heartbreak- The rock on which Freedom Stumped its toe.

I went down to the river, I set down on the bank. I tried to think but couldn’t, So I jumped in and sank.

Life is an egg you have to be patient and careful with it or it will break.

Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

Folks, I’m telling you, birthing is hard and dying is mean- so get yourself a little loving in between.

Teach us all to do right, Lord, please, and to get along together with that atom bomb on this earth because I do not want it to fall on me-nor Thee-nor anybody living. Amen!

When you turn the corner And you run into yourself Then you know that you have turned All the corners that are left.

The only way to get a thing done is to start to do it, then keep on doing it, and finally you’ll finish it.

Negro blood is sure powerful, because just one drop of black blood makes a colored man. One drop–you are a Negro! . . . Black is powerful.

Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro – and beautiful!

Politics in any country in the world is dangerous. For the poet, politics in any country had better be disguised as poetry. Politics can be the graveyard of the poet. And only poetry can be his resurrection.

Life is a big sea full of many fish. I let down my nets and pulled. I’m still pulling.

Peace We passed their graves: The dead men there, Winners or losers, Did not care. In the dark They could not see Who had gained The victory.

An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.

Politics can be the graveyard of the poet. And only poetry can be his resurrection.

There is no substitute for hardwork. Always be humble and hungry.

How many are the pains of those who hunger for revenge! They gnaw away at themselves constantly, and they have killed themselves even before they kill their enemies.

Always asked, ‘Whats the key to success?’ The key is, there is no key. Be humble, hungry and always be the hardest worker in the room.

If you’ve ever been hungry, you can never be full.

I still drink vodka; I’m not an advocate of drinking, but I’m no angel. I don’t like grass, because it just makes me hungry.

For a man to attain to an eminent degree in learning costs him time, watching, hunger, nakedness, dizziness in the head, weakness in the stomach, and other inconveniences.

Hunger is the best sauce in the world.

After 50 years of television, there’s no other conclusion the aliens could draw, but that most humans are neurotic, death-hungry, dysfunctional idiots.