All of my history as an African-American woman, as a Jewish woman, as a Muslim woman. I'm bringing everything I ever knew, and all the stories I've read - everything good, strong, kind and powerful. I bring it all with me into every situation, and I will not allow my life to be minimized by anybody's racism or sexism or ageism.
I love wisdom. And you can never be great at anything unless you love it. Not be in love with it, but love the thing, admire the thing. And it seems that if you love the thing, and you don't just want to possess it, it will find you. But if you're in love with the thing, it may run like hell away from you.
Whining lets the brute know there's a victim for him in the neighborhood!
My heart is so heavy when I see the reality of the Indian reservation and as an American, I know I am, too, responsible.
If you happen to fall in love with someone in another race, it's more difficult, because you have to translate yourself.
It's very hard for adults to maintain respect and romance so that a love affair can be sustained over years.
Try, start always at home. This is my encouragement to all writers, start at home. All virtues and vices begin at home, and then spread abroad.
Courage, I don't think anybody is born with courage. I think you may be born with a flair to braggadocio, you know. That's not courage.
My work is to be honest. My work is to try to think clearly, then have the courage to make sure that what I say is the truth.
My great blessing is my son, but I have daughters. I have white ones and Black ones and fat ones and thin ones and pretty ones and plain. I have gay ones and straight. I have daughters. I have Asian ones, I have Jewish ones, I have Muslim ones.
If I'm going to a new country, I try to learn something about the language and the culture, so I don't just go bumbling over things.
I have great respect for the past.
I'm a descendant of someone bought and sold, and brought in 1619 in what was to become the United States.
There is a lot of ignorance, and I don't mean intellectual ignorance. I mean people think that if you get something, it will take away from what I have. It's just ignorance.
I've lived many places on the planet, and I still have friends in many places.
My doctor told me that I really should lose some weight. "You're mildly obese," he said. And I thought, "Well, who couldn't afford to lose 20 or 30 pounds?" He said, "Well, a person in your category." I said, "What is that category, doctor?" He said, "Well, you're what I call upwardly middle aged." And I said, "I forgive you for everything."
There's something beautiful about the fact that Obama was not just elected, but elected decisively across racial, and socio-economic and cultural groups and that we all celebrated in his win.
I think all poems are commissioned. They just come to me without somebody outside commissioning them. The idea comes and I will live with them 'til I get it as close to what I mean. I've never been totally satisfied. I've come close a few times.
I like to go back and read poems that I wrote fifty years ago, twenty years ago, and sometimes they surprise me - I didn't know I knew that then. Or maybe I didn't know it then, and I know more now.
There are those who say that poets should use her and his art to change the world. I'd agree with that, but I think everybody should do that. I think the chef and the baker and the candlestick maker - I think everybody should be hoping to make it a better world.
I have enough of life in me to make somebody jealous enough to want to knock me down. I have so much courage in me that I have the effrontery, the incredible gall to stand up. That's it. That's how you get to know who you are.
When I want to think about what would be the right thing to do, the fair thing to do, the wise thing to do, I can just think of my grandmother. I can always hear her say, "Now sister, you know what's right. Just do right!"
We can see, from California to New York, from Maine to Florida, Seattle to New Mexico - everywhere there are women's groups. Everywhere there are women who have gotten together to examine global warming, and women who have gotten together to prepare each other for single parenting - there are women who have come together to be supportive to those whose mates are in prison, male or female, partners are in prison. All sorts of gatherings of women. I mean, I'm just celebrating my 80th year on this planet, and I look back 50 years ago and there was nothing like that.
When the human race neglects its weaker members, when the family neglects its weakest one - it's the first blow in a suicidal movement.
When I love somebody, I like him to be around; I like him to take me out to dinner; I like to look at the sunset with him. But if not, I love him and I hope he's looking at the same sun I am. Loving someone liberates the lover as well as the beloved. And that kind of love comes with age. Some of this wisdom came to me after I was 50 or 60.
