Yusef Komunyakaa Quotes
I like connecting the abstract to the concrete. There's a tension in that. I believe the reader or listener should be able to enter the poem as a participant. So I try to get past resolving poems.
Quotes to Explore
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I grew up playing on unprepared surfaces where your wicket depended on quickly adapting to the bounce. As a kid, I could never differentiate off-spin from leg-spin. All I looked to do was to try to hit the ball before it pitched.
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The music comes through me, and I let it come the way it comes, and it shapes itself. I just hold space for it. I don't intend to write it for a purpose, but it comes as it comes and am proud of the way it can support change because I believe strongly in what I sing about.
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I don't believe in regret.
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I don't believe your soul mate has to share your politics.
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I learned that the hardest party to pull off successfully is Saturday night dinner. This meal is expected to be elaborate: appetizers, first course, dinner, dessert, and coffee. People arrive at 7:30 or 8 p.m. and stay for hours - definitely past my bedtime - and they all go home exhausted.
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I am not ashamed of anything - not my past, not my affairs, not my body, and most definitely not my desire.
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Whenever societies do well, they believe that there is something in their cultural DNA that made it happen.
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The minute I put my leg on a horse and say, 'Come on, let's go,' I absolutely believe that the horse and I can do it and that we will do it. And I am always shocked when we actually don't do it. If the analytical mind ever overrode that optimist in me, I'd be in some serious trouble.
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I don't believe in a lot of schmoozing and buttering up. Not that you don't become friends in work. But I think it's a misconception that you have to do a lot of hanging before you work.
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See, I believe that it is not true that different races and nations are alike. I'm profoundly convinced that that's a total lie. I think people are different. Sardinians, for example, have stubby little fingers. Bosnians have short necks.
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If you believe that markets operate in Alan Greenspan fashion, then you don't inquire into the details.
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Teachers believe they have a gift for giving; it drives them with the same irrepressible drive that drives others to create a work of art or a market or a building.
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The past is open to all sorts of magical possibilities because it can't be verified. It's as we make it, so it seems to be entirely free. It seems to be completely up for grabs. But of course it's not.
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It's always been a great survival value for people to believe they belong to a superior tribe. That's just in human relationships.
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The Asian brand, which I admire for having become a global success, is Samsung. In comparison, we're just starting, but I believe that we at Uniqlo will be the next Asian brand to do well globally.
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The universe is always speaking to us... sending us little messages, causing coincidences and serendipities, reminding us to stop, to look around, to believe in something else, something more.
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You really want to get a headache? Try to understand Internet advertising.
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The study of history empowers nations and individuals with an ability to avoid errors of the past and lay foundations for victories in the future.
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My family has been in politics a long time in Los Angeles. We very much believe we are elected to represent the people. I mean, I am to give voice to, you know, the over half a million people I represent in my congressional district. I mean, that's the way it works.
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For a long period in my life - it lasted about 10 years - I had writer's block.
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Most people are walking around the city like corpses; they aren't alive enough to notice the trash. They come from other places and they see it as a big garbage dump. Do you want to live and work in a garbage dump? I don't. That's partly because I grew up in the most pristine environment possible - Hawaii, where it is sacrilege to leave your garbage on the ground.
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I have sun damage that I want to repair, but I also want to keep myself from further damage.
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I never fully understood it till my friend Professor Tolkien asked me the very simple question, 'What class of men would you expect to be most preoccupied with, and hostile to, the idea of escape?' and gave the obvious answer: jailers.
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I like connecting the abstract to the concrete. There's a tension in that. I believe the reader or listener should be able to enter the poem as a participant. So I try to get past resolving poems.
