Start where you are, use what you have.

The ideal attitude is to be physically loose and mentally tight.

I accepted the face that as much as I want to lead others, and love to be around other people, in some essential way, I am something of a loner.

We blacks look for leadership in men and women of such youth and inexperience, as well as poverty of education and character, that it is no wonder that we sometimes seem rudderless.... We see basketball players and pop singers as possible role models, when nothing could be further, in most cases, from their capacities.

Having grown up in a segregated environment in the south I know what it's like to be stepped on, I know what it's like also to see some black hero do well in the face of adversity.

My potential is more than can be expressed within the bounds of my race or ethnic identity.

In America you're conditioned to regard everything as a contest. You have to make the Ten Best Dressed List, win this, win that. It drives me nuts sometimes. Who cares, for Christ's sake?