Everybody needs history but the people who need it most are poor folks - people without resources or options.

What drives people to public service is a sense of possibility. If you haven't sensed that possibility you don't get started in the same way, you don't feel you can have an impact.

If you're black in America, race is a factor in your life. Start with that assumption.

We don't have a full black community in Boston. Our people are scattered. There's a middle class where I live in Highland Park but it's not like a piece of Washington or Chicago.

On the one hand, there is no reason that a black person needs to live a portion of his or her life being concerned about the people of color around him. On the other hand, if you don't you're crazy.

Food might be more immediately important than history but if you don't understand what's been done to you - by your own people and the so-called 'they' - you can never get around it.

He who fails to understand that one should prepare for every single blessing will reap the problems connected with lack of preparation before the blessing.

A lady must retain always her composure. Even in a rainstorm, she must appear joyous and dry. When she loses her composure, then the respect of her peers and her staff will follow in short order.

I was one of the first post-studio artists. I used to do my works in the streets. I used to find them in the streets, and I used to leave them in the streets.

Really it is very wholesome exercise, this trying to make one's words represent one's thoughts, instead of merely looking to their effect on others.

I owe all my success in life to having been always a quarter of an hour before my time.

[Donald Trump] has done a financial disclosure, which has gone through the Office of Government Ethics. I think he's done that twice. That is his duty under the law. I hear no complaints about that.

Growth today is an investment for tomorrow.

If there be a faith that can move mountains, it is faith in one's own power.

Democracy can't function without an informed citizenry.

Im just the highest energy person I know, and its really weird.