I think the election of [Barack] Obama was a great step to prove to the world that we believe that all men were created equal. I think it will show that we have humility.

I came from abject poverty. There was nowhere to go but up.

In order to achieve anything you must be brave enough to fail.

Virtue is not photogenic.

Streets crowded with people strolling, or sitting at outdoor cafes. And always, talking, gesturing, singing, laughing. I liked Rome immediately.Everybody was a performer.

I guess I was a bad boy... Yes, yes, I've had lots of women in my life.

You haven't learned how to live until you've learned how to give.

Life is like a B-picture script! It is that corny. If I had my life story offered to me to film, I'd turn it down.

Obey the voice within - it commands us to give of ourselves and help others. As long as we have the capacity to give, we are alive

The only advantage I have found in being Jewish is that I can be openly anti-Semitic.

My kids never had the advantages I had. I was born poor.

Like some wines our love could neither mature nor travel.

..if I dont do something on the grand scale, it is that my genius is altogether imitative, and that I have nor recently encountered any very striking models of grandeur.

The more you make your thoughts and beliefs into your identity, the more cut off you are from the spiritual dimension within yourself.

...you can have a dark heart and be a writer, but you can't have a black one..

What I do . . . the path I tread . . . it brings some choices that test me hard.

Each year India and China produce four million graduates compared with just over 250, 000 in Britain.

Hip-hop was the culture that I grew up with; I am part of this culture.

black isn't beautiful and it isn't ugly - black is! It's not kinky hair and it's not straight hair - it just is.

Whatever I am doing at that moment, I want to make the most of it.

A person is either the effect of his environment or is able to have an effect upon his environment.