The way to succeed is never quit. That's it. But really be humble about it. ... You start out lowly and humble and you carefully try to learn an accretion of little things that help you get there.

Early in the spring of 1750, in the village of Juffure, four days upriver from the coast of The Gambia, West Africa, a manchild was born to Omoro and Binta Kinte.

Nobody can do for little children what grandparents do. Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children.

I think most people when you say slavery tend to see a group of anonymous people pulling cotton sacks in great plantation fields, and that is largely true.

Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you.

There was a great deal of inbreeding between the Indians and the slaves. Genetically speaking, black people are some part black, some part European.

In the bush, trust no one you don't know.