The genesis of a poem for me is usually a cluster of words. The only good metaphor I can think of is a scientific one: dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation. I don’t think I solve problems in my poetry; I think I uncover the problems.

Almost everything that is great has been done by youth.

Literature must rest always on a principle, and temporal considerations are no principle at all. For, to the poet, all times and places are one; the stuff he deals with is eternal and eternally the same: no theme is inept, no past or present preferable.

Those who create are rare; those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger.

All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.

I want people to draw strength from me.

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.

When I am working on a book or a story, I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you, and it is cool or cold, and you come to your work and warm as you write.

Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.

In art the best is good enough.

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

For just when ideas fail, a word comes in to save the situation.

I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.

I like not fair terms and a villain’s mind.

The true artist is not proud: he unfortunately sees that art has no limits; he feels darkly how far he is from the goal, and though he may be admired by others, he is sad not to have reached that point to which his better genius only appears as a distant, guiding sun.

Love possesses not nor will it be possessed, for love is sufficient unto love.

The most important thing I can tell you about aging is this: If you really feel that you want to have an off-the-shoulder blouse and some big beads and thong sandals and a dirndl skirt and a magnolia in your hair, do it. Even if you’re wrinkled.

Everything rises and falls on leadership.

If there’s not drama and negativity in my life, all my songs will be really wack and boring or something.

I need drama in my life to keep making music.

In 7th grade, I believe, I wrote my first rap song. It was about everything I was seeing, everything that was going on around me.

You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems and suffer and understand, for all that is life.

The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.

Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.

If you don’t know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere.

The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.

I want people to follow their dreams, yes… but I’m not interested in telling young black kids how to be rappers… I want to show them that there’s so many other paths you can take, besides a rapper or basketball player.

I gather from motivation around me – from a lot of personalities who have done well in their respective fields.

I started out in life as a poet; I was only writing poetry all through my 20s. It wasn’t until I was about 30 that I got serious about writing prose. While I was writing poems, I would often divert myself by reading detective novels; I liked them.

All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.

What keeps me motivated is love and passion.

Even if you have nothing to write, write and say so.

Those who do not want to imitate anything, produce nothing.

A woman’s heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed recipe.

For me, writing a novel is like having a dream. Writing a novel lets me intentionally dream while I’m still awake. I can continue yesterday’s dream today, something you can’t normally do in everyday life.

Some writers sit down without a thought of what they are going to say, and they go through draft after draft.

What is true of the individual will be tomorrow true of the whole nation if individuals will but refuse to lose heart and hope.

I’m not afraid to write my feelings in songs.

The sun is gone, but I have a light.

I try to sprinkle a little gems and jewels in the music that people could use in their own life.

A good thing to remember is somebody’s got it a lot worse than we do.

Fires can’t be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men. Enthusiasm in our daily work lightens effort and turns even labor into pleasant tasks.

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.

It is through art, and through art only, that we can realise our perfection.

I like to be myself, and I don’t pretend. For instance, I don’t dress up for occasions; I am what I am.

I never wanted to be the next Bruce Lee. I just wanted to be the first Jackie Chan.

There is that in the glance of a flower which may at times control the greatest of creation’s braggart lords.

The task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.

Trust in dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

Duty, Honor, Country. Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be.

Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.

Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.

I’ve always done whatever I want and always been exactly who I am.

I had a lot of trouble with engineers, because their whole background is learning from a functional point of view, and then learning how to perform that function.

I went on all over the States, ranting poems to enthusiastic audiences that, the week before, had been equally enthusiastic about lectures on Railway Development or the Modern Turkish Essay.

Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.

You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him.

A sex symbol becomes a thing. I just hate to be a thing.

When you are organizing a group of people, the first thing that we do is we talk about the history of what other people have been able to accomplish – people that look like them, workers like them, ordinary people, working people – and we give them the list: these are people like yourself; this is what they were able to do in their community.