History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.

Look what you've already come through! Don't deny it. Say I'm stronger than I thought I was

For Africa to me... is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.

Reduce your humanity through what Jules Feiffer called little murders. The minute I hear someone trying to demean me, I know that that person means to have my life. And I will not give it to them. When a person commits these little murders, and then you catch him or her at it, he or she might say, "Oh, I didn't mean it." But make no mistake: It is an assassination attempt.

My entire stay there [high school] might have been time lost if it hadn't been for the unique personality of a brilliant teacher. Miss Kirwin was that rare educator who was in love with information. I will always believe that her love of teaching came not so much from her liking for students but from her desire to make sure that some of the things she knew would find repositories so that they could be shared again.

Forgive yourself - no one else will.

Living a life is like constructing a building: if you start wrong, you'll end wrong.