We have fought this fight as long and as well as we know how. We have been defeated. For us as a Christian people there is now but one course to pursue. We must accept the situation.

A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday does not know where it is today.

Mr. Blair, I look upon secession as anarchy. If I owned the four millions of slaves in the South, I would sacrifice them all to the Union; but how can I draw my sword upon Virginia, my native State?

There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil.

A land without memories is a people without liberty.

Remember, we are all one country now. Dismiss from your mind all sectional feeling, and bring them up to be Americans.

I have always observed that wherever you find the negro, everything is going down around him, and wherever you find the white man, you see everything around him improving.

I believe it to be the duty of everyone to unite in the restoration of the country and the reestablishment of peace and harmony.

The consolidation of the states into one vast empire, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of ruin which has overwhelmed all that preceded it.

So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished.

In all my perplexities and distresses, the Bible has never failed to give me light and strength.

God can make a cow out of a tree, but has He ever done so? Therefore show some reason why a thing is so, or cease to hold that it is so.

I knew from the age of 16 that I wanted to be a writer because I just didn't think I could do anything else. So I read and read and wrote short stories and dreamed of escape.

Home is, I suppose just a child's idea. A house at night, and a lamp in the house. A place to feel safe.

Black is not sad... Black is poetic.

Half of my heart’s got a grip on the situation, half of my heart takes time.

I was always okay with the fact that I was taller and bigger than everybody else growing up. My mom, my dad, and my friends always told me I was beautiful.

All that is unfair, offends us if it's not beneficial for us

Your subconscious is always working in the background, unlocking things and solving problems.

Every man can see things far off but is blind to what is near.

I'm just somebody that isn't that impressed by [Michael Jordan]. There really isn't anybody in the world I'm impressed with.