Influence is like a savings account, the less you use it, the more you've got

I always quoted to my parents from Kahlil Gibran, "The Prophet." Your children are not your children. They come through you, but not from you. You can give them your love, but not your thoughts, for they come from a land that you cannot enter, not even in your wildest dreams.

I tried. But not everybody thought so.

I like my life. I've had a good life. I think the reason is my parents taught me that life is a burden. But if you take it one day at a time, it's an easy burden.

Nobody Black had learned anything from the `Letter from the Birmingham Jail' or from the `I Have a Dream' speech. That was a revelation of white people.

I was much more comfortable and a much better congressman running in a district that was 37 percent black, where I had to have a white constituency to get elected, than I would have been if I was in a 75 percent black district.

I had to get a second passport in a hurry.