“Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.”

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.

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.

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

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.

Only strong birds fly in the storm.

I’m a bird trapped in a self-made cage.

No one is free, even the birds are chained to the sky.

[As a young man ] I came to the conclusion that the church was just a bunch of fascists that supported Franco. I stopped going on Sunday mornings and watched the birds with my father instead.

If you lose an opportunity you will be like one who lets the bird fly away; you will never get it back.

Never look for birds of this year in the nests of the last.

You can put wings on a pig, but you don’t make it an eagle.

It was terribly beautiful to Tess today, for since her eyes last fell upon it she had learnt that the serpent hisses where the sweet birds sing.