Ever since the civil rights movement, the black church has always encouraged people to utilize their voting right, which is a right that was fought for.

I will fight to the death for one's right to be able to practice in their temple, their mosque, or in their church, even if they have a different belief than I do.

If you are really standing up for the family, you then have to say, how do we change our school system, how do we fix tax policy so that our families are supported?

There is a different spelling between "rights" and "rites" - in other words, civic legislators and ecclesiastical councils have different responsibilities.

We should be supportive of the president and supportive of rights of all in a pluralistic democracy that we're called to love. And we live our faith; we don't legislate our faith.

I would rather fail doing God's work than have a pseudo-victory being co-opted by someone else.

Death, of course, should not be feared, but awaited with certain wonder. To die was to step across a threshold into a new world, unknown, unimaginable.

Being an authority on paper does not immediately grant you authority over a group until it is earned by you and given by them.

If I am constantly working, my relationships fail. So at least now I can have enough time to write a happy record. And be in love and be happy.

Black Power If the motive is good, and there are no other possibilities, then seen most deeply it [violence] is nonviolence, because its aim is to help others.

The great desire of this age is for a doctrine which may serve to condense our knowledge, guide our researches, and shape our lives, so that conduct may really be the consequence of belief

The problem suggests the solution.

As soon as you publish a book and the reader reads it, they're making an extension of your brain with their brain.

To have a museum like the Museum of Modern Art in New York is to have power. I don't have any interest in being the director of an institution that has power.

What would rock and roll be without ambition, craziness, danger, and fun?

I don't even think when I'm walking down the runway. I don't really breathe either.