If I had to choose between baseball’s Hall of Fame and first class citizenship for all of my people. I would say first-class citizenship.

A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.

I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.

Life is not a spectator sport. If you're going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you're wasting your life.

There's not an American in this country free until every one of us is free.

The most luxurious possession, the richest treasure anybody has, is his personal dignity.

I am not concerned with being liked or disliked. I am concerned with being respected

I know that I am a black man in a white world. . . I know that I never had it made.

Relationships may change throughout the gift of time, memories stay the same forever in my mind.

This ain't fun. But you watch me, I'll get it done.

A life isn't significant except for its impact on others' lives.

As humans, we should be able to answer the question: “What do you do with your time?

Take the wrong route sometimes and make fool out of yourself. Laugh at your mess ups because it will all become a funny story one day.

As a dinner guest I gratefully eat just about anything that's set before me, because graciousness among friends is dearer to me than any other agenda.

Never depend on those luck moments – they are gifts – but instead always build your own back-up plan.

Good or bad, the one thing I can say about my art is, if I can quote Sinatra, I did it my way.

Words are inaccurate pointers to reality and should by no means be trusted.

We must acknowledge that for scores of years the Iraqis have offered martyrs and victims but have not been able to change the regime.

As physics is a mental reconstruction of material processes, perhaps a physical reconstruction of psychic processes is possible in nature itself.

I suspect any serious reader has a first great book, just the way anybody has a first kiss.

Miami, in many ways, is a quintessentially American city. The juxtaposition of showy wealth with dire pennilessness, the tussle of glitz and decay doesnt come any more marked than here.