“Art is not a handicraft; it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.

“They, they, they. That was the problem with people like Joyce. They talked about the richness of their multicultural heritage and it sounded real good, until you noticed that they avoided black people. It wasn't a matter of conscious choice, necessarily, just a matter of gravitational pull, the way integration always worked, a one-way street. The minority assimilated into the dominant culture, not the other way around. Only white culture could be neutral and objective. Only white culture could be nonracial, willing to adopt the occasional exotic into its ranks. Only white culture had individuals. And we, the half-breeds and the college-degreed, take a survey of the situation and think to ourselves, Why should we get lumped in with the losers if we don't want to? We become only so grateful to lose ourselves in the crowd, America's happy, faceless marketplace; and we're never so outraged as when a cabbie drives past us or the woman in the elevator clutches her purse, not so much because we're bothered by the fact that such indignities are what less fortunate coloreds have to put up with every single day of their lives-- although that's what we tell ourselves-- but because we're wearing a Brooks Brothers suit and speak impeccable English and yet have somehow been mistaken for an ordinary nigger. Don't know who I am? I'm an individual!”

“Strength in the wrong place is weakness. That’s true of anyone’s gift. If you’re not using your greatest asset in the right way, it’s a weakness. Your greatest strength might be your undoing”

“Immediately, the water turned into wine. This was the first recorded miracle of Jesus’ ministry on earth and I want to remind you that His miracles did not stop there. He will also do miracles in your life if you obey Him, and offer yourself as a clean pot He can fill.”

“I hope that we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”

“There are no shortcuts—everything is reps, reps, reps.”

“Every violent reform deserves censure, for it quite fails to remedy evil while men remain what they are, and also because wisdom needs no violence.”

“Experience gives us confidence, but we never get experience unless we step out and try things we have not tried before.”

“Josh Billings wrote, “It’s not what a man knows that hurts him; it’s what he knows that isn’t true.”

“One mistake I’ve seen people repeatedly make is that they focus too much attention on their dream and too little on their team. But the truth is that if you build the right team, the dream will almost take care of itself.” 

“A ship is always safe at the shore - but that is NOT what it is built for.”

“Your dreams come crushing down when you tow the wrong path by looking at what others are doing. The Milky Way Galaxy would have been crushed down by now if each planet had left its own orbit to revolve elsewhere!”

“The stakes involved in Washington policy debates are often so high-- whether we send our young men and women to war; whether we allow stem cell research to go forward-- that even small differences in perspective are magnified. The demands of party loyalty, the imperative of campaigns, and the amplification of conflict by the media all contribute to an atmosphere of suspicion. Moreover, most people who serve in Washington have been trained either as lawyers or as political operatives-- professions that tend to place a premium on winning arguments rather than solving problems. I can see how, after a certain amount of time in the capital, it becomes tempting to assume that those who disagree with you have fundamentally different values-- indeed, that they are motivated by bad faith, and perhaps are bad people.”

“Rejoice with your family in the beautiful land of life.”

“So is that what’s important to you? To be able to freeze in the middle of a scene and to have somebody give you your line? Wouldn’t it be much better to go through Africa and show them how to dig wells and how to make vegetables grow and inspire them to plant?”