"I know you can be strong, but I want you always to be strong for your brother. Stay close to him and tell him to stand firm in the face of dangers of any kind."

"umans tend to start the process of change by acknowledging themselves—thus blacks asserted black pride and black is beautiful; women declared I am woman, I am strong ; men are saying I am man, I am ok…"

"Does Michael Jackson or Archie Bunker or the president of General Motors need to know about quantum mechanics? Of course not. You can live a full life without that. But if you don’t believe that the u…"

"What the poet has in mind . . . is that poetic value is an intrinsic value. It is not the value of knowledge. It is not the value of faith. It is the value of imagination. The poet tries to exemplify …"

"Does anyone come back from this? I don't know the answer to that, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let this destroy me."