Poetry Is Life Distilled.

A Poem Doesn't Do Everything For You. You Are Supposed To Go On With Your Thinking. You Are Supposed To Enrich The Other Person's Poem With Your Extensions, Your Uniquely Personal Understandings, Thus Making The Poem Serve You.

I've Always Thought Of Myself As A Reporter. When People Ask Why I Don't Stop Writing, I Say, `look At What's Happening In This World. Every Day There's Something Exciting Or Disturbing To Write About.’ With All That's Going On, How Could I Stop?

It Frightens Me To Realize That, If I Had Died Before The Age Of Fifty, I Would Have Died A 'negro' Fraction.

People Like Definite Decisions, / Tidy Answers, All The Little Ravelings / Snipped Off, The Lint Removed, They / Hop Happily Among Their Roughs / Calling What They Can't Clutch Insanity / Or Saintliness.

Do Not Be Afraid Of No, Who Has So Far, So Very Far To Go.