In an unfamiliar culture, it is wise to offer no innovations, no suggestions, or lessons.

Martin Luther King was a human being with a brilliant mind, a powerful heart, and insight, and courage and also with a sense of humor. So he was accessible.

I made the decision to quit show business. Give up the skintight dresses and manicured smiles. The false concern over sentimental lyrics. I would never again work to make people smile inanely and would take on the responsibility of making them think.

You don't want modesty, you want humility. Humility comes from inside out. It says someone was here before me and I'm here because I've been paid for. I have something to do and I will do that because I'm paying for someone else who has yet to come.

If you're a human being, you can attempt to do what other human beings have done. We don't understand talent any more than we understand electricity.

I suggest that the great art belongs to all people, all the time--that indeed it is made for the people, by the people, to the people.

I am always talking about the human condition and about American society in particular: what it is like to be human, what makes us weep, what makes us fall and stumble and somehow rise and go on from darkness into darkness and that darkness carpeted.