The minute a person whose word means a great deal dares to take the open-hearted and courageous way, many others follow.

If you have a purpose in which you can believe, there's no end to the amount of things you can accomplish.

You lose a lot of time, hating people.

When I sing, I don't want them to see that my face is black; I don't want them to see that my face is white - I want them to see my soul. And that is colorless.

As long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you otherwise might.

Prejudice: Sometimes it's like a hair across your cheek. You can't see it, you can't find it with your fingers, but you keep brushing at it because the feel of it is irritating.

Every one has a gift for something, even if it is the gift of being a good friend.

Fear is a disease that eats away at logic and makes man inhuman.

None of us is responsible for the complexion of his skin. This fact of nature offers no clue to the character or quality of the person underneath.

When you stop having dreams and ideals - well, you might as well stop altogether.

Leadership should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it

You should break away from unproductive routines that do not positively benefit you or make your life better.

Revenge, ' he said, 'is a human invention. It serves no purpose.

On Staten Island, there's a ship graveyard. I'm using that a lot, even for 'Under the Dome.' When I'm dissatisfied with a location scout, I go on Google Earth. It's an amazing tool.

A lot of entrepreneurs let ego get in the way. You've got to be the conductor. You can't play all the instruments yourself. You have to get others to work together.

I don't believe in charity. I believe in solidarity.

It's better to go into the world half-cocked than not to go into the world at all.

For many years, I believed racism in America was dead and that opportunity existed for all. My beliefs were shaken when the Rodney King officers were acquitted.

Well, 'The Wellspring' was written from 1983 to 1986. And it had a section in the beginning that was poems that began from others' experience.

A line is a fuse that's lit. The line smolders, the rhyme explodes— and by a stanza a city is blown to bits.

I don't like the term 'black people', I find it demeaning to those of us that actually qualify as 'people'.