My father lived to be 97 and played bridge every day up to the end, so I've got a 50 percent chance of living a long life like him.

In America there is institutional racism that we all inherit and participate in, like breathing the air in this room - and we have to become sensitive to it.

The story of the African-American people is the story of the settlement and growth of America itself, a universal tale that all people should experience.

The first step toward tolerance is respect and the first step toward respect is knowledge.

The thing about black history is that the truth is so much more complex than anything you could make up.

In Ethiopia, the black people became Christians 1700 years ago, hundreds of years before Northern Europe turned to Christianity... And here, most of the saints are black.

We can revolutionize the attitude of inner city brown and black kids to learning. We need a civil rights movement within the African-American community.

I want to be a figure for prison reform. I think that the criminal justice system is rotten.

Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.

Wherever you go in the history of America, there have been Black people making contributions, but their contributions have been obscured, lost, buried.

Well, certainly one of the ironies of the success of affirmative action is that the middle class within the black community no longer lives within 'black community' by and large.

I was kicked out of school because of my attitude. I was not assimilating. So I went to work, taking any jobs I could get.

When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty but when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

I seek advice from my wife, who has been with me for 20 years and knows me better than I even know my own self.

Just because something doesn't last forever, it doesn't mean it wasn't meaningful while it did last. It doesn't mean it wasn't important.

Every man is the maker of his own fortune

Heaven knows that there are plenty of opportunities in later life, too, for being carried away. What of it? We remain what we are and, no doubt, it is all very good for us!

Never settle. There is no need to rush.

Praise is warming and desirable. But it is an earned thing. It has to be deserved, like a hug from a child.

He who commends the brutalities of the past, sows the seeds of future crimes.

I have a cartoon where the guy is pretty much, he's a regular-sized guy, but he's the size of the island. He's saying no man is an island, but I come pretty damn close.