As long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you otherwise might.

I suppose I might insist on making issues of things. But that is not my nature, and I always bear in mind that my mission is to leave behind me the kind of impression that will make it easier for those who follow.

Fear is a disease that eats away at logic and makes man inhuman.

None of us is responsible for the complexion of his skin. This fact of nature offers no clue to the character or quality of the person underneath.

Prayer begins where human capacity ends.

Sometimes you're overwhelmed when a thing comes, and you do not realize the magnitude of the affair at that moment. When you get away from it, you wonder, did it really happen to you.

I had gone to Europe . . . to reach for a place as a serious artist, but I never doubted that I must return. I was - and am - an American.