My father saw two black men lynched on his street in Cartersville, as a child. And I think seeing two black businessmen - not vagrants - hanging from trees as a child was traumatic for him.

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.

Take away health, wealth, and material success and all you have is each other. Maybe that's the place we should start.

The idea of forgiveness is a journey that requires patience. If the journey of forgiveness is well travelled, there is a chance that we are bound to change in a very helpful way.

Some things must remain the same in order for the universe to flow properly. One pebble dashed out across the ocean leaves a lifetime of ripples. They call it the butterfly effect.

The darkest clouds are the best ennobling of the sun, because the sun is most wanted under the darkest clouds! The evil is condemned to glorify and to honour the good!

She had dealt with her pregnancy by wrapping herself in dreams.

I won't buy into the Hollywood thing...I want to be in good movies.

Education is not a discipline at all. Half vocational, half emptiness dressed up in garments borrowed from philosophy, psychology, literature.

Americans are responsible not only for really starting a lot of things in a lot of countries, but also for giving people the confidence to do things they might never have thought to do.

A career is wonderful, but you can't curl up with it on a cold night.

I don't see any use in having a uniform and arbitrary way of spelling words. We might as well make all clothes alike and cook all dishes alike. Sameness is tiresome; variety is pleasing.