We are not a nation that says 'don't ask, don't tell.' We are a nation that says 'out of many, we are one.'

You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

Keep exploring. Keep dreaming. Keep asking why. Don’t settle for what you already know. Never stop believing in the power of your ideas, your imagination, your hard work to change the world.

When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don't really have to do anything, you just let them talk.

Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail.

Change is never easy, but always possible.

Don’t ever let anybody tell you that your efforts don’t matter or that your voice doesn’t count. Don’t ever believe that you can’t make a difference. You have.

Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up.

Learning to stand in somebody else's shoes, to see through their eyes, that's how peace begins. And it's up to you to make that happen. Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world.

If somebody is different from you, that's not something you criticize, that's something that you appreciate.

Math is the language of the head, music is the language of the heart. Of the two, it is music that speaks the most truth.

Yet he understood that there are some things you feel and others that you choose to feel, and that the choice doesn't make the feeling less valid.

I pretty much bailed on high school. I mean, I graduated, but I wasn't even there for my own graduation.

The secret is that when you've been pitched head first into hell you just write about it

Feelings can be controlled and behavior can be controlled. The line of sin is between the feelings and the behavior. The line of prudence is between the susceptibility and the feelings.

I feel like the cosmos implies mystery, or infinite secrets.

The spirit of dogmatic theology poisons anything it touches.

Survival," I said softly. "It's selfish, and it's dark, and we've always been a species willing to do anything to satisfy our needs. Individuals have morals. Mobs have appetites.

Starkville is an Indian word for trailer park.

I did Vibe, and I felt old and paternal. I've got ties older than people in that audience. I had a talk with myself. I said, You've got to deal with this better.