I want to learn how to pick locks, swordfight, throw pottery - it's all research. It's like the curious person's version of James Bond's license to kill. I've got a license to learn.

When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.

Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.

I have, of course, been called many other things. Most of them uncouth, although very few were unearned

The world is a mess and I just need to rule it.

Half of seeming clever is keeping your mouth shut at the right times.

It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.

It was wise enough to know itself, and brave enough to be itself, and wild enough to change itself while somehow staying altogether true.

If I seem to wander, if I seem to stray, remember that true stories seldom take the straightest way

There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.

Do not mistake me for my mask. You see light dappling on the water and forget the deep, cold dark beneath.

Accept things inf life and then start fighting. It is like knowing the armory skills of your opponent before beginning the battle.

The Word of God is my life's manual.

I may like to be on my own, but I like being alive.

The interesting thing about the African-American experience in this country is that we are sort of a mongrel of people. I mean we're all kind of mixed up.

My old friend, water, my good companion, my beloved mother and father: I am its most natural offspring.

I never saw a purple cow; I never hope to see one; But I can tell you, anyhow, I'd rather see than be one.

The world is what you make of it, friend. If it doesn’t fit, you make alterations.

Christians are the unstable, unlettered, superstitious masses

Even in the most difficult situation there is always, somehow, a way to triumph

The hall-mark of American humour is its pose of illiteracy.