And so for a couple of years my life was divided between my music and my school books.

Amsterdam was a great surprise to me. I had always thought of Venice as the city of canals; it had never entered my mind that I should find similar conditions in a Dutch town.

You are young, gifted, and Black. We must begin to tell our young, There's a world waiting for you, Yours is the quest that's just begun.

Every race and every nation should be judged by the best it has been able to produce, not by the worst.

The colored people of this country know and understand the white people better than the white people know and understand them.

My appearance was always good and my ability to play on the piano, especially ragtime, which was then at the height of its vogue, made me a welcome guest.

Lift every voice and sing Till earth and heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of Liberty. Let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies; Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

This country can have no more democracy than it accords and guarantees to the humblest and weakest citizen.

Young man, young man, your arm's too short to box with God.

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered.

It’s no disgrace to be black, but it’s often very inconvenient.

Know yourself in order to be better not to criticize and judge yourself

the only drinking problem I've ever had, is figuring out why I'm still stuck in this salad spinner

Form follows profit is the aesthetic principle of our times.

When we are no longer capable of love, we are no longer alive.

I've always wanted to do a movie that takes place in the 70's and was about rock and roll and getting high, like Dazed and Confused or Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

Each one an antidote to the one that went before. Each one a reaction, an about-face, a rebound.

I don't know who it is," she said; "but somebody cares for me a little. I have a friend.

Prayer is - keeping company with God.

Because a truly skeptical position would be a very uncertain one.

Do you think there is any other means of achieving progress except through Rajas?