For the first time in our history it is possible to conquer poverty.

Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.

Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.

Lincoln was right about not fooling all the people all the time. But Republicans haven't given up trying.

Better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.

I have learned that only two things are necessary to keep one's wife happy. First, let her think she's having her own way. And second, let her have it.

A man can take a little bourbon without getting drunk, but if you hold his mouth open and pour in a quart, he's going to get sick on it.

There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves.

Our numbers have increased in Vietnam because the aggression of others has increased in Vietnam. There is not, and there will not be, a mindless escalation.

Democracy is a constant tension between truth and half-truth and, in the arsenal of truth, there is no greater weapon than fact.

Just like the Alamo, somebody damn well needed to go to their aid. Well, by God, I'm going to Viet Nam's aid!

Wisdom is the fruit of a balanced development.

A good book is not the same as a successful one.

We are a model country where gender equality is concerned.

My mother had lots and lots of children who didnt survive.

You have to have a thin skin. As a creative person, you have to. You can't get a thick skin.

There’s nothing more fierce than the female, like the momma lion. Believe me, my wife is a good example.

I was always thin. I guess I have good genes, so I never worried too much about my weight.

We affirm depth as the only pictorial and plastic form of space.

Life can't be cured, but it can be managed.

I think I view myself primarily as a fiction writer. Poetry is more of a "hobby," a time of rest from the hard work of writing fiction.