Until recently each generation found it more expedient to plead guilty to the charge of being young and ignorant, easier to take the punishment meted out by the older generation (which had itself confessed to the same crime short years before). The command to grow up at once was more bearable than the faceless horror of wavering purpose, which was youth.

[Librarians] study their field with as much determination and as much delight as open-heart surgeons.

We are more alike than unalike.

Without defeats, how do you really know who the hell you are? If you never had to stand up to something - to get up, to be knocked down, and to get up again - life can walk over you wearing football cleats. But each time you do get up, you're bigger, taller, finer, more beautiful, more kind, more understanding, more loving. Each time you get up, you're more inclusive. More people can stand under your umbrella.

Until blacks and whites see each other as brother and sister, we will not have parity. It's very clear.

Nothing hurts more than realizing they meant everything to you, but you meant nothing to them.

Life is pure adventure, and the sooner we realize that, the quicker we will be able to treat life as art.