I want people to follow their dreams, yes… but I’m not interested in telling young black kids how to be rappers… I want to show them that there’s so many other paths you can take, besides a rapper or basketball player.

You may make some mistakes – but that doesn’t make you a sinner. You’ve got the very nature of God on the inside of you.

In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.

The poets are only the interpreters of the gods.

Whenever death may surprise us, let it be welcome if our battle cry has reached even one receptive ear and another hand reaches out to take up our arms.

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.

What someone else does or doesn’t do has no effect on me and what I do.

It was really hard for them to intimidate me. They felt I was intimidating. One of the growers had a name for me: I think it was ‚dragon lady‘ or something like it.

Even if you have nothing to write, write and say so.

And the idea of just wandering off to a cafe with a notebook and writing and seeing where that takes me for awhile is just bliss.

Oh, the difference between nearly right and exactly right.

Leaders must invoke an alchemy of great vision.

We still have many neighborhoods that are racially identified. We still have many schools that even though the days of state-enforced segregation are gone, segregation because of geographical boundaries remains.

Our brand of democracy is hard. But I can promise that a year from now, when I no longer hold this office, I’ll be right there with you as a citizen – inspired by those voices of fairness and vision, of grit and good humor and kindness that have helped America travel so far.

When I’m writing a record, I kind of don’t listen to much music. Just because I want to be inspired solely on the emotion; just based on how it feels.

What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?

If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

A #2 pencil and a dream can take you anywhere.

Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved.

If I could write directly on a typewriter or a computer, I would do it. But keyboards have always intimidated me. I’ve never been able to think clearly with my fingers in that position. A pen is a much more primitive instrument. You feel that the words are coming out of your body and then you dig the words into the page.

I will not be triumphed over.

If you ask people what they’ve always wanted to do, most people haven’t done it. That breaks my heart.

The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay.

I’ve turned down shows offering large amounts of money.

Sometimes I write about my own life. And sometimes I write about situations I see my friends going through. Sometimes I write about a scene I saw in a movie. I take inspiration from all different places.

Real beauty knocks you a little bit off kilter.

I never realized until lately that women were supposed to be the inferior sex.

Women have to summon up courage to fulfill dormant dreams.

Nothing is permanent in this wicked world – not even our troubles.

I felt like, for so many years – and I still even feel it – as a girl, you can’t really expect to go on stage and dress like a boy and jump around and scream with the audience and mosh and stuff, and every time that happens, I feel really proud.

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

People make jokes about my bosoms, why don’t they look underneath the breasts at the heart? It’s obvious I’ve got big ones and if people want to assume they’re not mine, then let them.

If I were a Negro, I’d be fighting, as Martin Luther King fought, for human recognition and justice. I’d rather go down with my flag flying. If you’re weak or crippled, or you can’t speak out or fight back in some way, then people don’t hesitate to treat you badly.

If you deserve it, go get it.

National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country. Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right.

I’ve only wanted paper and beautiful colors. It was my dream, and it still is my dream. And books. They’re all I need, and the rest I can do without.

Hope is a waking dream.

Life must be lived and curiosity kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

I think unconscious bias is one of the hardest things to get at.

The limits of the possible can only be defined by going beyond them into the impossible.

Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, ‚What’s in it for me?‘

I do believe in self-help.

The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their families or have lived in a Muslim-majority country – I know, because I am one of them.

When I got into this, I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me, I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor, and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

I always seem to get inspiration and renewed vitality by contact with this great novel land of yours which sticks up out of the Atlantic.

When you give everyone a voice and give people power, the system usually ends up in a really good place. So, what we view our role as, is giving people that power.

If you were to ask me what I want to do – I don’t want to be a celebrity, I want to make a difference.

Ideas can be life-changing. Sometimes all you need to open the door is just one more good idea.

Becoming famous was never what I wanted to do. There’s a lot of things that come with fame – it’s what people in the limelight have to do.

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.

I remember flying in, driving down 101 in a cab, and passing by all these tech companies like Yahoo! I remember thinking, ‚Maybe someday we’ll build a company. This probably isn’t it, but one day we will.‘

Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.

I never wanted to stay in one genre; I never wanted to be pigeon-holed or defined as the actor who only worked in one genre. I want to be able to work in all different genres. For me it’s fun, and that’s how I grow as an actor.

I think New York has evolved in my work just the way the city has.

Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.

I never dreamed of being a pop star when I was a child.

I like everything. Boyish girls, girlish boys, the heavy and the skinny. Which is a problem when I’m walking down the street.

Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.

I believe the destiny of your generation – and your nation – is a rendezvous with excellence.

To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions.