Schools must stop being holding pens to keep energetic young people off the job market and off the streets. We stretch puberty out a long, long time.

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.

The bird of paradise alights only upon the hand that does not grasp.

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

Alex has met them at the restaurant with his latest girlfriend, black-banged Lola, a performance artist who claims to have studied magic.

One should never fight for a country. One should fight, if one has to, for what one believes to be right. A country is only as good as its leading citizens.

Big and oppressive government has long been the enemy of freedom, something black Americans know all too well.

Too much art was no art at all. Like candy instead of bread!

The joy that isn't shared dies young.

But always I was a private citizen whose activities in government or political party were appointive.

World needs more angels, even plywood ones.

I enjoy doing motivational talks with businesses and other organizations. I really enjoy being with people and encouraging them in the work they do.