If you can only be tall because someone else is on their knees, then you have a serious problem. And white people have a very, very serious problem.

I have only to break into the tightness of a strawberry, and I see summer - its dust and lowering skies.

If you want to fly, you have to give up the things that weigh you down.

The function of freedom is to free someone else.

Don’t beg anybody for anything, especially love.

There is no such thing as race. None. There is just a human race - scientifically, anthropologically. Racism is a construct, a social construct... it has a social function, racism.

There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent.

All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.

Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.

Don't let a thief into your house three times. The first time was enough. The second time was a chance. The third time means you're stupid.

Your mind is the voice for your heart.

You can't have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time.

I love movies to death. I spent my entire youth in front of a TV watching old movies.

Waste not fresh tears over old griefs.

Finally, the lessons of impermanence taught me this: loss constitutes an odd kind of fullness; despair empties out into an unquenchable appetite for life.

The IRA has abandoned its armed struggle in pursuit of its goals by political means. This must be fully acknowledged. Continued challenge does nothing but obstruct and inhibit the peace process.

I never had any desire to get a tattoo. If I was ever going to get one, I would get a plain anchor with a rope around it, the most unimaginative possible tattoo, like Popeye had.

Legislators invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind.

I love shopping on a budget. I believe that more fashion mistakes are made by people with deep pockets than by those who shop on a budget.