“So that's what it is!" he suddenly exclaimed aloud. "What joy!”

“TELL THE WORLD WHAT YOU INTEND TO DO, BUT FIRST SHOW IT.This is the equivalent of saying "deeds, and not words, are what count most.”

“They may torture my body, break my bones, even kill me. Then they will have my dead body, but not my obedience.”

“Here is the treasure chest of the world - the public library, or a bookstore.”

“The great crowds themselves are meaningless. The thing that counts is what happens in the hearts of the people. The evangelist sows the seed, and much inevitably falls upon stony ground and bears no fruit. But if only a few seeds flourish, the results are manifold.”

“UN LÂCHEUR NE GAGNE JAMAIS ET UN GAGNEUR NE LÂCHE JAMAIS.”

“However, at the moment, I believe the more important thing that can be done with the platform I have been given is to try to convince the American populace that we are not one another’s enemies even if a (D) is by some of our names and an (R) by the names of others. Knowing that the future of my grandchildren and everyone else’s is put in jeopardy by a continuation of reckless spending, godless government, and mean-spirited attempts to silence critics leaves me with little choice but to continue to expound on the principles outlined in my prayer breakfast speech and to fight for a bright future for America.”

“When worry is present, trust cannot crowd its way in.”

“growth compounds and accelerates if you remain intentional about it.”

“You see, when a tragedy like this strikes, it is part of our nature to demand explanations - to try to impose some order on the chaos, and make sense out of that which seems senseless.”

“Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles—the CHOAM Company.”

“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!”

“We need a backbone, not a wishbone.” 

“Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind; for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.”

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing. At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.”