The world is better because of Coretta Scott King. She affected countless lives and her voice will be deeply missed, especially by those who carry on her incredible undertaking.
Black writers, of whatever quality, who step outside the pale of what black writers are supposed to write about, or who black writers are supposed to be, are condemned to silences in black literary circles that are as total and as destructive as any imposed by racism.
Civilizations can only be understood by those who are civilized.
Whether you're throwing up or breaking up, you want your girlfriend right there! I don't trust women who don't go to their girlfriends.
A lot of people who don't have anything collect dogs; it's kind of a symbol of having something.
Much of what Germany and France have done in the rescue of Greece has also helped German and French banks, who for a long time were major creditors for Greece and Greek banks.
I grew up in Cleveland and started doing plays in high school. And I went to the University of Illinois, and I majored in drama. And after school, I went up to Chicago, because I didn't really know anybody in New York or Los Angeles, and I knew people who were doing plays in Chicago.
Part of the satisfaction of tattling surely comes from showing oneself to adults as a good moral agent, a responsible being who is sensitive to right and wrong. But I would bet that children would tattle even if they could do so only anonymously. They would do it just to have justice done.
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.
When I was in my 20s, I thought I knew who I was. And then as soon as I turned 30, I realized that person has bruises and bumps and dark parts. And you kind of go, well, that's it. I'd rather embrace it than force myself to change.
He who believes in freedom of the will has never loved and never hated.
Mediocrity is now, as formerly, dangerous, commonly fatal, to the poet; but among even the successful writers of prose, those who rise sensibly above it are the very rarest exceptions.
A consensus politician is someone who does something that he doesn't believe is right because it keeps people quiet when he does it.
I've worked with a lot of people who are more famous than myself who are terribly insecure.
I am a wild orchid of comedy, so I can only do well under specific conditions... There are people who I think can do any room, and do stadiums and thousand-seat theaters, and then there are people like me who just perform for my parents.
Confidence is highly overrated when it comes to creating literature. A writer who is overly confident will not engage in the struggle to get it exactly right on the page - but rather, will assume that she's getting it right without the struggle.
Those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.
I have to confess that a strong contributing factor was that I had just taken what was probably the first acid ever made, given to me by a guy called Johnny Fellows, who had just returned from America.
Silence is the safest course for any man to adopt who distrust himself.
You can't be sensitive, because you're going to get criticized. I don't care who you are, you're going to get criticized.
In America today, the percentage of children and adolescents who are defined as overweight is more than double what it was in the early 1970s.
I constantly compare myself to artists who have, like, 10 times the budget I do. My mind is the biggest challenge, honestly.
Many Jews are not Zionists and many non-Jews are. Zionism is a political movement, not a race. To say Zionism is the Jewish people is like saying the Democratic Party is the American people. Jewish people who oppose Zionism, however, have been given a very hard time.
In talking to you I feel very much more at ease than my colleagues who gave the speeches during the banquet.
We ought to get out of the judging business. We should leave it up to God to determine who belongs in one arena or another when it comes to eternity. What we are obligated to do is to tell people about Jesus, and that's what I do.
The pure work implies the disappearance of the poet as speaker, who hands over to the words.
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.
I have not met a man as tall as me who is as quick as me, ever.
A neurotic is a man who builds a castle in the air. A psychotic is the man who lives in it. A psychiatrist is the man who collects the rent.
I had a ninth grade teacher who told me I was much smarter and much better than I was allowing myself to be.
There can be no two opinions as to what a highbrow is. He is the man or woman of thoroughbred intelligence who rides his mind at a gallop across country in pursuit of an idea.
The Roman legions were formed in the first instance of citizen soldiers, who yet had been made to submit to a rigid discipline, and to feel that in that submission lay their strength.
Feminists who say that I switched sides because I am an opportunist should know that exactly the opposite is true. It's cost me a lot of money. I've gone from being well-to-do to being $70,000 in debt. I have done something self-destructive financially. I could only do it because I don't have to support a wife and child.
Men who have been raised violently have every reason to believe it is appropriate for them to control others through violence; they feel no compunction over being violent to women, children, and one another.
Few cross the river of time and are able to reach non-being. Most of them run up and down only on this side of the river. But those who when they know the law follow the path of the law, they shall reach the other shore and go beyond the realm of death.
In some ways, privileged women who are closer to power wind up being able to exert their influence in ways that change public policy in ways that women with less power don't have access to.
