And have brought humanity to the edge of oblivion: because they think they are white.

It took many years of vomiting up all the filth I’d been taught about myself, and half-believed, before I was able to walk on the earth as though I had a right to be here.

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.

Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.

There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.

The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.

It demands great spiritual resilience not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck, and an even greater miracle of perception and charity not to teach your child to hate.

Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be

People can cry much easier than they can change.

Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.

Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limitations to where you can go.

We cannot despair about mankind knowing that Mozart was a man.

In this world, all--men, women, and kings--must live for the present. We can only live for the future for God

Russia's now in the middle of a fierce confrontation with Turkey. And that's one of France's NATO allies.

Proof that they do not understand the republic is that in their fine promises for universal suffrage, they forgot women.

Eh Bien you like this sacred pig of a country?" asked Marco. "Why not? I like it anywhere. It's all the same, in France you are paid badly and live well; here you are paid well and live badly.

Madoff's scam was small compared to Ponzi schemes the government itself runs: Social Security and Medicare.

There’s always going to be someone who is prettier than you, better than you in some way, but everyone has that something that makes them different.

I am proud of all my ancestresses. They showed us that it's possible to do great things and still live a happy, pleasure filled life. So can I; so can you.

You can stick a BMW badge on a dead cat - and people would still buy it.

We must believe, but we can't believe. Perhaps this is the tragedy that some of us see in Obama: a change we can believe in and the crushing realisation that nothing will change.