My grandmother had the most dramatic effect on my life because she set me in one direction, and I had to go back the other direction for my sanity, and for my ability to be a social human being.

One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter.

The world is filled with violence. Because criminals carry guns, we decent law-abiding citizens should also have guns. Otherwise, they will win and the decent people will lose.

There is not enough magic in a bloodline to forge an instant, irrevocable bond.

Stuttering is painful. In Sunday school, I'd try to read my lessons, and the children behind me were falling on the floor with laughter.

If you expect someone else to guide you, you'll be lost.

Once you begin to explain or excuse all events on racial grounds, you begin to indulge in the perilous mythology of race.

In the wintertime, in the snow country, citrus fruit was so rare, and if you got one, it was better than ambrosia.

When I read great literature, great drama, speeches, or sermons, I feel that the human mind has not achieved anything greater than the ability to share feelings and thoughts through language.

In our resolve to build a better world... we seek to summon what Abraham Lincoln called the better angels of our nature.

Don't you try and go through life worried if someone had liked you or not. You best make sure that they are doing right by you.

Are you the fruit of redemption? If yes, then make a delightful noise unto Him.

Am I ever angry or frustrated? I only feel angry sometimes when I see waste, when things that we waste are what people need, things that would save them from dying. Frustrated? No, never.

While Haiti has recently celebrated more than 200 years of independence from French colonial rule, the citizens of the island remain vulnerable to poverty, poor health, and political chaos.

I had no ambition to become an actor at all.

I have always loved 'Stig of the Dump.' I think reading that book made me officially realise that I was a reader.

In tension you cannot perceive; in laxity you cannot perceive. Only if you are intense and relaxed, you perceive everything just the way it is.

To our Soldiers: Thank you again and again, you will always matter, not only on this Memorial Day but every day!

I draw like other people bite their nails.

Epidemics on the other side of the world are a threat to us all. No epidemic is just local.

You fall in love, and it completely consumes you.