I believe if we make black America better, we make all of America better.

The data is going to indicate sadly that when the Obama administration is over, black people will have lost ground in every single leading economic indicator category.

The choices we make about the lives we live determine the kinds of legacies we leave.

Don't envy someone else's gift. Discover your own.

The storm came. Lives were washed away. Ancient pains resurfaced. Now it is time for a sea of change.

Sometimes rejection in life is really redirection.

We need to elect leaders who understand that leadership is about loving and serving people, not about self-advancement.

Regardless of your race, religion or political affiliation, never hesitate to question those in authority.

Poverty and wealth inequality are a form of instability into the future.

Capitalism is like a child: if you want the child to grow up free and productive, somebody's got to look over the shoulder of that child.

Why don't we scale up those things that do work.

The phrase "having it all" has little to do with having what we want.

Today is a gift.Today is all I have.I be fully awake in today.

Self-similarity is symmetry across scale. It implies recursion, pattern inside of pattern.

We must constantly dare ourselves in the small things, until courage becomes a habit of mind that will serve us when we are unexpectedly tested.

One must be able to say at all times--instead of points, straight lines, and planes--tables, chairs, and beer mugs

My bedroom's like an armoury.

That's the hard work of writing. The imagining.

Why don't you come up sometime 'n see me? I'm home every evening. . . . Come up. I'll tell your fortune. . . . Ah, you can be had.

God is God and I am not. I can only see a part of the picture He's painting.

When I first started painting candyland imagery, I was looking for the best possible metaphor for everything that is pleasure, desire and insatiability.