Discipline is the servant of inspiration.

As I grow older part of my emotional survival plan must be to actively seek inspiration instead of passively waiting for it to find me.

When we finally stop asking America to love us and begin to love ourselves, we will prosper as a people.

Forgiveness is the key to the recovery of the soul.

People of color, particularly African Americans, feel the stigma more keenly. In a race-conscious society, some don't want to be perceived as having yet another deficit.

Knowing who you are begins in the mind.

The music was as much a gift as sunshine, as rain, as any blessing ever prayed for.

You live your life between your ears.

My color is my joy and not my burden.

Race, redemption and healing - thats my thing.

African Americans know about racism, but I don't think we really know the causes. I decided it's first of all a family problem.

For all the way he loved her. Every song had her memory, every rain had her smell, and every girl had her face.

Marriage is a gamble, let's be honest.

If a script has that affect on me during a reading, then it is definitely a film I want to be part of.

Ultimately, I'm not so sure that, as a person, I'm all that interesting.

In high school, I was just a guy who ran the court and played defense. Now I have the whole package.

We are growing serious, and, let me tell you, that's the very next step to being dull.

American and Vietnamese characters alike leap to life through the voice and eyes of a tenyearold girl-a protagonist so strong, loving, and vivid I longed to hand her a wedge of freshly cut papaya.

I never studied, but I had the best teachers.

All authors secretly hope that their works will be read in 100 years' time and 200 years, and that they will somehow survive into the future.

My business was great, and in such a case as mine a man may strain courtesy.