Americans don't bother to notice anybody else in the world.

We've been taught in America that big is best. That's why people have to believe that they must live in the greatest country in the world, which is absolutely idiotic.

I think people involved with institutions find it harder to know the time to go than the time to come.

I was really worn down by an American society that is racist, smugly blind to it, and hugely self-satisfied.

Where does a black soul go to rest?

People need their history like they need air and food.

We all have to die, and I preferred to have just one death. It seems to me that to suffer insult without response is to die many deaths.

I've never had any trouble opposing people I've been close to. I've never worried about offending or bothering people I feel strongly about.

Something is very, very wrong with American culture. The signs are everywhere. I think the country is in almost terminal descent.

I think the evangelicals want to provoke an immense global disaster to precipitate the second coming of Christ.

Democracy requires that if you who don't like the outcome of elections you have to tolerate it and then pursue your interest the next time around.

Do no harm, but take no shit.

The problem to me is violence. It's not cool to kill somebody or hurt people.

He who laughs at everything is as big a fool as he who weeps at everything.

In the end, I think part of my problem was that I was a better legislator than I was a politician.

Time is short, your obligations are infinite. Are your houses regulated, your children instructed, the afflicted relieved, the poor visited, the work of piety accomplished?

My heart's desire is to find more opportunities to give myself away and teach my children the joy of service at the same time.

Compassion can shoulder the suffering of the entire world without feeling the slightest bit of pain.

Even though my grandparents live overseas and are so far away and we talk as much as we can, we don't see each other that often.

The thing one reads and likes, and then forgets, is of no account. The thing that stays, and haunts one, and refuses to be forgotten, that is the sincere thing.

People who could not even spell the word 'vote' or say it in English put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House.