We all suffer. If a man's wise, he learns from it.

In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future.

Racism is taught in our society, it is not automatic. It is learned behavior toward persons with dissimilar physical characteristics.

Nobody can do for little children what grandparents do. Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children.

The way to succeed is never quit. Thats it. But really be humble about it.

Roots is not just a saga of my family. It is the symbolic saga of a people.

Every time an old person dies, it's like a library burning down.

Anytime you see a turtle up on top of a fence post, you know he had some help.

When you start about family, about lineage and ancestry, you are talking about every person on earth.

When you clench your fist, no one can put anything in your hand.

You have to deal with the fact that your life is your life.

Words got the power to hurt or heal.

I was working in silence seeking no appreciation or respect from any one. And it is always the silence from which great literature is born.

The culminating point of administration is to know well how much power, great or small, we ought to use in all circumstances.

We can find reasons to dislike anyone. But it's what you focus on and appreciate in a person that cultivates a positive relationship.

It is a vast wilderness of rocks in a sea of light, colored and glowing like oak and maple in autumn, when the sun gold is richest

No amount of success - whatever that means, quote-unquote success - no amount of success replaces the reality of being separated from my family for this long.

My dad, the old professor, used to say, 'Never get into an argument about what's folk music and what isn't.'

Conversation takes practice; the more we do it, the better we get, and the more easily we do it.

No artist produces great art by a deliberate attempt to express his own personality.