The history of race relations in America is very different than something like the Holocaust.

There's something to be said about a slightly plump person—you have just enough of too much.

The inevitable is no less a shock just because it is inevitable.

Express everything you like. No word can hurt you. None. No idea can hurt you. Not being able to express an idea or word will hurt you more. Like a bullet.

I was given a dictionary when I was seven, and I read it because I had nothing else to read. I read it the way you read a book.

People don't make changes because things are wonderful.

I would be lost without the feeling of antagonism that people have towards me. I write out of defiance.

People only say I’m angry because I’m black and I’m a woman.

A great piece of literature encompasses all that is and all that will be.

...yet a memory cannot be trusted, for so much of the experience of the past is determined by the experience of the present.

I'm so used to being misunderstood.

When you jump for joy, beware that no one moves the ground from beneath your feet.

Live it well and this life can be grand.

Pursue truth and people will be true to you.

I felt a positive yearning toward one bush this afternoon. There was a match found for me at last. I fell in love with a shrub oak.

As for me, my charter is Jesus Christ, the inviolable charter is His cross and His death and resurrection, and faith through Him.

In addition, there is one title I cherish a great deal more than Congressman and that is the title of... Dad.

Adopt the standard of perfection, because it is a perfect universe.

There is a huge gulf between the man who follows the conventions and laws of his country and the man who sets out to regiment them and to change them.

The elephants were being slaughtered in masses. Some were even killed in the vicinity of big tourist hotels.

I have respect for those who make money at art and do it well and smartly, because that commercial aspect keeps the world going and running, in a sense.