I've tried to be totally present, so that when I'm finished with a piece of work, I'm finished. ... The work, once completed, does not need me. The work I'm working on needs my total concentration. The one that's finished doesn't belong to me anymore. It belongs to itself.

Don't hesitate to learn the most painful aspects of our history, understand it.

We are not just flesh and blood. And our hungers are not going to be set aside as just flesh and blood.

The hope, the hope that lives in the breast of the black American, is just so tremendous that it overwhelms me sometimes.

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: 'I'm with you kid. Let's go.'

This is what I am learning, at 82 years old: the main thing is to be in love with the search for truth.

I dreamt we walked together along the shore. We made satisfying small talk and laughed. This morning I found sand in my shoe and a seashell in my pocket. Was I only dreaming?