I want to be treated like a human being.

I'd see the bus pass every day… But to me, that was a way of life; we had no choice but to accept what was the custom. The bus was among the first ways I realized there was a black world and a white world.

I do the very best I can to look upon life with optimism and hope and looking forward to a better day.

As long as people use tactics to oppress or restrict other people from being free, there is work to be done.

Many whites, even white Southerners told me that even though it may have seemed like the blacks were being freed (by my actions) they felt more free and at ease themselves. They thought that my action didn't just free blacks but them, too.

I had been pushed as far as I could stand to be pushed. I had decided that I would have to know once and for all what rights I had as a human being and a citizen.

What really matters is not whether we have problems, but how we go through them. We must keep going on to make it through whatever we are facing.