My grandmother told me that every good thing I do helps some human being in the world. I believed her 50 years ago and still do.

You never get over the fear of writing.

Never, never let a person know you're frightened. And a group of them ... absolutely never. Fear brings out the worst in everybody.

Dare to let your dreams reach beyond you...

You want me to do something... tell me I can't do it.

The needs of a society determine its ethics, and in the Black American ghettos the hero is that man who is offered only the crumbs from his country's table but by ingenuity and courage is able to take for himself a Lucullan feast. Hence the janitor who lives in one room but sports a robin's-egg-blue Cadillac is not laughed at but admired, and the domestic who buys forty-dollar shoes is not criticized but is appreciated. We know that they have put to use their full mental and physical powers. Each single gain feeds into the gains of the body collective.

Be wary when a naked person offers you his shirt