In many ways [those middle-aged black ladies] my touchstone, because they are what I meant when I talked about the audacity of hope.

You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

Keep exploring. Keep dreaming. Keep asking why. Don’t settle for what you already know. Never stop believing in the power of your ideas, your imagination, your hard work to change the world.

When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don't really have to do anything, you just let them talk.

Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail.

Change is never easy, but always possible.

Don’t ever let anybody tell you that your efforts don’t matter or that your voice doesn’t count. Don’t ever believe that you can’t make a difference. You have.

Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up.

Learning to stand in somebody else's shoes, to see through their eyes, that's how peace begins. And it's up to you to make that happen. Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world.

If somebody is different from you, that's not something you criticize, that's something that you appreciate.

Pretend you are foolish to the foolish, and be yourself when you are alone or with others like you, because if you take the foolish seriously as your friend, you might be a fool yourself.

I don't have friends. Before I can't without friends.

Neither boost about your own strength nor dignity but the sacred grace of God.

I grew really fast. It's true I went from 5'6'' to 6'1'' in six months in 8th grade. By the end of 8th grade, I was 6'1''. Everyone was freaking out.

I think, basically, what I'm good for is reading - a lot.

An evangelical minister has had to resign after pictures surfaced showing him in a hot tub with two women. He claimed it was just a baptism gone terribly wrong.

People invest in your ability to deliver to them a more favorable future.

Take a minute: look at your goals, look at your performance, see if your behavior matches your goals.

It is a disgraceful thing to be ignorant.

Eventually, I want to finish my degree.