Although not of the quality of my later work, I feel there is some quality to it [my early work] in an art sense, and probably some additional quality in a biographical sense.

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.

I'm so tired of waiting, aren't you, for the world to become good and beautiful and kind?

The only way to get a thing done is to start to do it, then keep on doing it, and finally you'll finish it.

A world I dream where black or white, Whatever race you be, Will share the bounties of the Earth And every man is free.

When a man starts out to build a world, He starts first with himself

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed - Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above.

I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.

I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.

Negroes - Sweet and docile, Meek, humble, and kind: Beware the day - They change their mind.

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? ... Or does it explode?

Everyday objects shriek aloud.

They had perfected their team nagging to a level where they no longer had to confer and felt they would be wasting their talents if they only admonished their own children.

Scripture tells us that we shall not oppress a stranger, for we know the heart of a stranger. We were strangers once, too.

Prose exists to convey meaning, and no meaning such as prose conveys can be expressed as well in poetry. That's not poetry's purpose.

Certainly I'm a Christian first and foremost. But I do believe in religious tolerance and finding the commonality between all of us. I think that's how we're all going to come together.

Pride only helps us to be generous; it never makes us so, any more than vanity makes us witty.

Being on Broadway is the modern equivalent of being a monk. I sleep a lot, eat a lot, and rest a lot.

Time narrows or expands according to how we approach it. It varies with a man’s breadth, with his heart.

The second album is the hardest to write. Its nothing like the first album.

The four Cs as secret of my success-curiosity, confidence,courage and constancy.