“The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect, he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself, he becomes wise”
“I am not a doctrinaire of any kind. I'm still searching. Sometimes I call myself an anarchist, but I know that anarchism is not a final answer. Sometimes I lean toward Marx, but more often I lean toward Ghandi-Tolstoi-Thoreau.”
“I couldn't help being a part of my race. A race that continued to be tough. It was possible for me to accept myself, finally, only when I realized-emotionally-that poetry is tough too, that a poem can contain as much fury and power as a fist or a blackjack.”
“Offhand, the only North American writers I can think of who have come from a background of rural poverty and gone on to write about it have been Negroes.”
