I deplored a system that made it more profitable not to work than to work. I wanted to help change all that.

My parents taught me that racial prejudice is a sin, one that robs the world of great minds and talents.

My entire life has been devoted to breaking down barriers, to finding common ground.

Labels applied to people of any race are inherently offensive.

I spent many years working for voting rights, but we still see sophisticated efforts, led by white officials, to disenfranchise black voters in local and national elections.

Election victories are a harvest. You plant the seed. For months or years, you water and tend them. In the election season, you reap the harvest.

Politics is not a tea party. When it is time to act, you have to move fast and decisively.

You can't say the negro left the Republican party; the negro feels he was evicted from the Republican party.

In elective politics, it's up or out. You go up the ladder, or you get out of the game.

To stand still is to regress.

Historically we have rejected extremism on the left and the right. Centrism is the right course for America.

I just don't— Ronan. My ears are bleeding!"Ronan turned down the music.

There's no reason for your imagination to be fettered by money.

Story is the mother of us all, for we become who we say we are.

Connecting dots is not that rewarding of an experience.

At one point I took a copy of Berkeley's Principles from my father's library. That was the first philosophy book I read. I found it fascinating and wanted to read more philosophy.

I'm a minimalist. I see things in simple ways...It's human nature to define complexity as better. Well, it's not.

The gray glaze of the past attacks all know-how...

I stumble all the time parenting my daughter. I ask her for forgiveness all the time and I preach forgiveness to her.

The future is built on the flow of new ideas.

At the beginning of all growth, everything imitates.