“I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.”

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.

I did not believe political directives could be successfully applied to creative writing . . . not to poetry or fiction, which to be valid had to express as truthfully as possible the individual emotions and reactions of the writer.

I do not want no pretty woman. First thing you know, you fall in love with her-then you got to kill somebody about her. She’ll make you so jealous, you’ll bust!

A world I dream where black or white, Whatever race you be, Will share the bounties of the Earth And every man is free.

Good morning, Revolution: You’re the very best friend I ever had. We gonna pal around together from now on.

Never look for a worm in the apple of your eye.

A picture, to be an interesting picture, must be more than a picture, otherwise it is only a reproduction of an object, and not an object of value in itself.

I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I’m dead. I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.

Humor is laughing at what you haven’t got when you ought to have it.

Cheap little rhymes A cheap little tune Are sometimes as dangerous As a sliver of the moon.

There’s a certain amount of traveling in a dream deferred.

The calm, Cool face of the river, Asked me for a kiss.

I don’t dare start thinking in the morning. I don’t dare start thinking in the morning. If I thought thoughts in bed, Them thoughts would bust my head– So I don’t dare start thinking in the morning.

If you want to honor me, give some young boy or girl who’s coming along trying to create arts and write and compose and sing and act and paint and dance and make something out of the beauties of the Negro race-give that child some help.

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.

Every day I discover more and more beautiful things. It’s enough to drive one mad. I have such a desire to do everything, my head is bursting with it.

It is only an error of judgment to make a mistake, but it argues an infirmity of character to adhere to it when discovered.

It is only in God that we discover our origin, our identity, our meaning, our purpose, our significance, and our destiny. Every other path leads to a dead end.

Aborigines, n.: Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.

Life is not a search for experience, but for ourselves. Having discovered our own fundamental level we realize that it conforms to our own destiny and we find peace.

The easiest way to discover the purpose of an invention is to ask the creator of it. The same is true for discovering your life’s purpose: Ask God.

Most people discover that when hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with their own pain.

Dear God, I am so afraid to open my clenched fists! Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to? Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands? Please help me to gradually open my hands and to discover that I am not what I own, but what you want to give me.