We cannot discuss the state of our minorities until we first have a sense of what we are, who we are, what our goals are, and what we take life to be.

I was guilty and irritated and full of love and pain. I wanted to kick him and I wanted to take him in my arms.

Ask any Mexican, any Puerto Rican, any black man, any poor person - ask the wretched how they fare in the halls of justice, and then you will know, not whether or not the country is just, but whether or not it has any love for justice, or any concept of it. It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.

The interior life is a real life, and the intangible dreams of people have a tangible effect on the world.

If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons.

American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.

Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.