My Heart Is Not Peripheral To Me.

All Of Western Tradition, From The Late Bloom Of The British Empire Right Through The Early Doom Of Vietnam, Dictates That You Do Something Spectacular And Irreversible Whenever You Find Yourself In Or Whenever You Impose Yourself Upon A Wholly Unfamiliar Situation Belonging To Somebody Else. Frequently It's Your Soul Or Your Honor Or Your Manhood, Or Democracy Itself, At Stake.

The Thing About Genius Is It Will Never Yield To Circumstances. Genius Regards What's Given As The Beginning Of Its Need To Find Or Devise Something Else.

In America, You Can Segregate The People, But The Problems Will Travel. From Slavery To Equal Rights, From State Suppression Of Dissent To Crime, Drugs And Unemployment, I Can't Think Of A Supposedly Black Issue That Hasn't Wasted The Original Black Target Group And Then Spread Like Measles To Outlying White Experience.

Americans Have Begun To Understand That Trouble Does Not Start Somewhere On The Other Side Of Town. It Seems To Originate Inside The Absolute Middle Of The Homemade Cherry Pie.

The First Function Of Poetry Is To Tell The Truth, To Learn How To Do That, To Find Out What You Really Feel And What You Really Think