“See how nature - trees, flowers, grass - grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...we need silence to be able to touch souls.”

“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!”

“You have authority in your mouth, hence don't need to be afraid; but rather positively affirm!”

“If you complain you will remain, if you praise you will be raised.”

“The terrain enforced its own rhythms.”

“All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days . . .nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.”

“Awake,arise,and assert yourself,you dreamers of the world. Your star is now in ascendancy.”

“YO DECLARO que Dios está alineando todas las cosas para mi bien. Él tiene un plan maestro para mi vida. Puede que haya cosas que yo no entienda ahora mismo, pero no estoy preocupado. Sé que todas las piezas no están ahí todavía, pero un día todo se juntará y tendrá sentido. Veré el plan maravilloso de Dios llevándome a sitios que nunca me imaginé. Esta es mi declaración.”

“In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.”

“Look for the valleys, the green places, and fly through them. There will always be a way through.”

“The desire for sexual expression is inborn and natural. The desire cannot, and should not be submerged or eliminated. But it should be given an outlet through forms of expression which enrich the body, mind, and spirit of man.”

“I hold that the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man.”

“Joy is the serious business of heaven.”

“Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don't fight them. Just find a new way to stand.”

“You are the driver steering your own dreams. Choose to knock down whatever crosses your way.”