I would have been trying to pitch a concept about my community to someone that most likely was not a part of that community.

You can boldly overcome every circumstance.

Whether we like it or not asking is the rule of the Kingdom.

I always thought it hadn't influenced me very much, but I heard from many people from England that many motives from German fairytales are to be found in my books.

Ye Heavens, how sang they in your courts, How sang the angelic choir that day, When from his tomb the imprisoned God, Like the strong sunrise, broke away?

The mind is furnished with ideas by experience alone

There's nothing worse, I guess, than being black in an all-white church or being southern and being a liberal.

Happiness reveals itself when we are at peace with ourselves.

Even among the elite, in government circles, technological culture is somewhat deficient.

You're not supposed to have it all figured out in high school. If you knew it all, and it was the best, it's all downhill from there.

I think because my parents died in their early 50s, mid 50s, I always thought I would die young. And that's been both a useful thing and I suspect something that's haunted me a little bit.