While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God's creation.

I love a statement by the apostle Paul, in the Book of Philippians in the Bible. I think the Corinthians had been writing to Paul, telling him that old men were chasing young women, nobody was tithing - and all that must have run Paul crazy. He wrote back and said, "If there be anything of good report, speak of these things." That's one of my principles.It's another discipline that I encourage myself to employ - to, as much as possible, say the courteous thing, and then be it.

We can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognize that human beings are more alike than we are unalike.

I know why the caged bird sings.

We can only know where we're going if we know where we've been.

Try to live your life in a way that you will not regret years of useless virtue and inertia and timidity.

Without willing it, I had gone from being ignorant of being ignorant to being aware of being aware. And the worst part of my awareness was that I didn't know what I was aware of. I knew I knew very little, but I was certain that the things I had yet to learn wouldn't be taught to me at George Washington High School.