I think everybody needed to know what had happened to Emmett Till.

When people saw what had happened to my son, men stood up who had never stood up before.

Have you ever sent a loved son on vacation, and had him returned to you in a pine box, so horribly battered and water-logged that someone needs to tell you this sickening sight is your son, lynched?

If you have to get on your knees and bow when a white person goes past do it willingly.

Take a rain check on poverty with Cosmic Ordering.

A year jammed full of adventure and misadventure, strides forward and many steps backward, another year in my topsy-turvy, Jekyll-and-Hyde existence.

Know what an optimist is, Major? A pessimist without much experience.

And the best sort of villain is smart and subtle and so very tricky that you don't even know he's the villain, because he thinks himself the hero in his own story.

The solid wealth of insurance companies and the success of those who organize gambling are some indication of the profits to be derived from the efficient use of chance.

When chaos is the god of an era, clamorous music is the deity's chief instrument.

How do you make yourself not like someone?

I was a very confident little kid.

When we do what we love, again and again, our life comes to hold the fragrance of that thing.

Rapine, avarice, expense, This is idolatry; and these we adore; Plain living and high thinking are no more.