My sense of humor will always stand in the way of my seeing myself, my family, my race or my nation as the whole intent of the universe.

If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.

Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It's beyond me.

I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.

All my skinfolk ain't kinfolk.

There are years that ask questions and years that answer.

Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.

I love myself when I am laughing. . . and then again when I am looking mean and impressive.

Bitterness is the coward's revenge on the world for having been hurt.

If you haven't got it, you can't show it. If you have got it, you can't hide it.

My mind mends my motives and my notion navigates my natives, for we all are made of soil-our corrupted soil.

I'd always rather be working - and you know what? My kids would rather me be working. If I stay at home, I'll only buy another car or spend their money.

I am becoming the people I love.

You can always find contradictions and hope, in hopeless circumstances, and a sense of redemption in somebody who makes the same mistake, over and over. So far, so good. That's how I put it.

You are not your idea, and if you identify too closely with your ideas, you will take offense when they are challenged.

God, I pray Thee, light these idle sticks of my life and may I burn for Thee. Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine. I seek not a long life, but a full one, like you, Lord Jesus.

Some characters become your friends for life. That's how it was for me with Betsy-Tacy.

History and war are cruel pedants. Those who know too little of the former are likely to have too much of the latter.

Real love is strange and changeable… but also somehow constant.