The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.

Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth.

To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi.

Unless you're ashamed of yourself now and then, you're not honest

We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.

Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain.

Don't do what you can do - try what you can't do.

There is no such thing as bad whiskey. Some whiskeys just happen to be better than others. But a man shouldn't fool with booze until he's fifty; then he's a damn fool if he doesn't.

Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders.

To live anywhere in the world today and be against equality because of race or color is like living in Alaska and being against snow.

The Republican Party did not disparage the ruling class, because most of its officials are or would like to be part of it.

As music becomes more computer-based, it's lost some emotional impact.

What I say is that the supreme and singular joy of making love resides in the certainty of doing evil.

We have to call mass surveillance mass surveillance. We can't let governments around the world redefine, and sort of weasel their way out of it by saying this is bulk collection.

Most of us are only willing to call 5% of our present information into question any one point.

That's what I think is smart about 'Durham County.' It's not derivative of anything American. It's more in the vein of the BBC miniseries I grew up with.

I think that acting can be a very pressurized existence. So when I'm not working, I spend very loose and unpressurized time and I like to meet people who have a similar attitude.

We have to choices in this world; we either try to survive or to give up.

Discipline is the highest form of love. If you really love someone, you have to give them the level of discipline they need.