If I'm the people's poet, then I ought to be in people's hands - and, I hope, in their heart.

The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.

If I walked into the kitchen without washing my hands as a kid, I'd hear a loud 'A-hem!' from my mother or grandmother. Now I count on other people to do the same.

It's a bleak morning for me and for many people and yet it's a great morning because we have a chance to look at her and see what she did and who she was. It's bleak because I can't - many of us can't hear her sweet voice but it's great because she did live, and she was ours. I mean African-Americans and white Americans and Asians, Spanish-speaking - she belonged to us and that's a great thing.

Just as hope rings through laughter, it can also shine through tears.

When things were very bad his soul just crawled behind his heart and curled up and went to sleep