Thank you, WomenWerk — we’re ever so honored!

rad poets society

We cannot create what we can’t imagine.  — Lucille Clifton

There is no straight road, no straight road in this world, only a giant labyrinth of intersecting crossroads.  — Federico Garcia Lorca

Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard. — Anne Sexton

Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts…then listen close to me. Anything can happen, child. Anything can be. — Shel Silverstein

I will not take “but” for an answer. — Langston Hughes

The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking. –A.A. Milne

It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences. — Audre Lorde

 Genius is the recovery of childhood at will. — Arthur Rimbaud

At the innermost core of all loneliness is the deep and powerful yearning for union with one’s lost self. — Brendan Behan

We can’t change the world until we change ourselves. — Biggie Smalls

 For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

I don’t hate nobody. I hate certain conditions that are inflicted upon the people — and they’re helpless with it. –Mos Def (aka Yasmin Bey)

 Don’t talk unless you can improve the silence. — Jorge Luis Borges

 Act the way you’d like to be and soon you’ll be the way you act.  — Leonard Cohen

 How can I begin anything new with all of yesterday in me? — Leonard Cohen

  We have never arrived. We are in a constant state of becoming.  — Bob Dylan

 Life always offers a second chance. It’s called tomorrow. — Dylan Thomas

 Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense. — Gertrude Stein

 There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in. — Leonard Cohen

 Love is the only engine of survival. — Leonard Cohen

We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are. –Anais Nin

I made no resolutions for the new year. The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life, is too much of a daily event for me. — Anais Nin

 If I’ve learned one thing in life, it’s  not to be so judgmental of other people. — Patti Smith

Years of love have been forgot in the hatred of a minute.  — Edgar Allen Poe

When we are committed to doing the work of love, we listen even when it hurts. — bell hooks

 A person isn’t who they are during the last conversation you had with them. They’re who they’ve been throughout your whole relationship. — Rainer Maria Rilke

 It’s harder to make the glass than break the glass.  — RZA

 Be curious, not judgmental. — Walt Whitman

Gonna get through this world the best I can.  — Woody Guthrie

Viva la Resolution!

Join us, won’t you? Details at http://www.nypeace.org/viva. Have some fun whilst supporting peace in NYC and beyond.

the wordy dozen.

The best way to solve problems and fight against war is through dialogue. –Malala Yousafzai

There’s no story if there isn’t some conflict.  — Wes Anderson

If you want to make peace with your enemy you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner. — Nelson Mandela

Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice. — Baruch Spinoza

Be good. To yourself, to other people, to everything you do. It’s a norm of life by which people should try to live. Don’t waste time. Be interesting and interested. — Mikhail Baryshnikov

I don’t know what life was like 1,000 years ago, but I imagine there was the same struggle: people trying to connect with each other. — Spike Jonze

When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.  — Jimi Hendrix

I’m only alive out of curiosity I’m curious where we’re all marching. — John Hurt, RIP

Despite everything, I believe people are really good at heart. — Anne Frank

Gentleness clears the soul. Love cleans the mind. And makes it free  — Davide Bowie

The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel. — Piet Mondrian (Also true for mediators!)

If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing. –Marc Chagall

in living black and white.

Here are black and white (and less migraine-inducing) versions of some of my recent drawings. 

 

honoring Black History Month.

 Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that. — Martin Luther King, Jr.

When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. — Jimi Hendrix

If you’re tired of arguing with strangers on the internet, try talking to them in real life. — Barack Obama

 You have to listen with a heart. I don’t want to sound touchy-feely — it is not. It is very hard work.  — Anna Deavere Smith

If you’re not hopeful and optimistic, then you just give up. You have to take the long hard look and just believe that if you are consistent, you will succeed. — John Lewis

 It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize accept and celebrate those differences. — Audre Lorde

 Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing. — August Wilson

 Nonviolence is pretty ballsy, pretty advanced weaponry. — Ava DuVernay

 If there is no struggle, there is no progress. — Frederick Douglass

 Every one of us has the capacity to be an oppressor. I want to encourage everyone to interrogate how we might be an oppressor and how we might become liberator for ourselves and for each other.  — LaVerne Cox

We’re stuck in fear and in not wanting to cross that most important bridge of understanding that we’re more alike than not. — Stevie Wonder

 The mind and the voice by themselves are not sufficient. — Mahalia Jackson

 Making the simple complicated is commonplace. Making the complicated simple, awesomely simple — that’s creativity. — Charles Mingus

It takes more than one of us to bring about peace. It takes all of us. — Rosa Parks

Human existence exists on multiple level, not just on a two-dimensional lefel, not just being identified with what you do and say.  — Ornette Coleman

I don’t hate nobody. I hate certain conditions that are inflicted upon the people — and they’re helpless with it.  — Mos Def/Yasiin Bey

When we are committed to doing the work of love, we listen even when it hurts. — bell hooks

 When in doubt, zoom out. — Reggie Watts

 The greatest gift is not being afraid to question.  — Ruby Dee

 Be grateful for the luck, pay the thunder no mind — listen to the birds. And don’t hate nobody.  — Eubie Blake

 Change comes from listening, learning, caring and conversation.  — Gwen Ifill

 A musician’s whole life is to listen. — Wynton Marsalis

 Service is the rent that you pay for room on this earth. — Shirley Chisholm

 It’s harder to make the glass than break the glass.  –RZA

 You are none of the superficial things that the world deems important. The real you is the energy force that created the universe. — RuPaul

 Kindness eases change. Love quiets fear.   — Octavia Butler

 There is nothing better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time. — Malcolm X

 I don’t let my mouth say nothing that my head can’t stand. — Louis Armstrong

 One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team. But one man cannot make a team.  — Kareem Adbul Jabbar

 Keep in mind always the present you are constructing. It should be the future you want. — Alice Walker

 When there’s no mutual respect, there’s trouble. — Dizzy Gillespie

You’re not teaching anyone unless you’re learning yourself. — Hilton Als

 I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once the hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with real pain.  — James Baldwin

 There are many spokes on the wheel of life. First, we’re here to explore new possibilities. — Ray Charles

I have always been a learner because I knew nothing.  — Sidney Poitier

Judgement of the people in the situation is not helpful. How you can help them is the question.  — Russell Simmons

Hate is too great a burden to bear. — Martin Luther King, Jr.