I wish to live because life has within it that which is good, that which is beautiful, and that which is love.

One cannot live with sighted eyes and feeling heart and not know and read of the miseries which affect the world.

Sometimes, I can see the future stretched out in front of me - just as plain as day. The future hanging over there at the edge of my days. Just waiting for me.

Our Southside is a place apart: each piece of our living is a protest.

It isn't a circle--it is simply a long line--as in geometry, you know, one that reaches into infinity. And because we cannot see the end--we also cannot see how it changes. And it is very odd by those who see the changes--who dream, who will not give up--are called idealists...and those who see only the circle we call them the "realists"!

American straightforwardness is almost as disarming as Americans invariably think it is.

This is one of the glories of man, the inventiveness of the human mind and the human spirit: whenever life doesn't seem to give an answer, we create one.