There are a lot of groups that feel a little bit strange around me, because I am inclusive.

DACA recipients risk a lot to come out of the shadows & sign up, but many will tell you the risk is worth being able to live and work in the only country they’ve ever known as home. DACA recipients serve in our military, work in Fortune 100 companies, and conduct important medical research.

It’s always interesting about God because it’s like all of the religions in the world say that they pray to the same God, and yet they ask that same one God to divide itself up and agree with this one and fight against that one.

We are moving towards a world that is reordering itself and that may appear more ordered at some periods of time, but I see no sign that we are moving towards a world order in my definition of it – namely, a system which is accepted, which is internalized by the majority of the key participants.

When I do a picture and it’s 90% black, like ‚Bird,‘ I use 90% black people.

Whether or not I like a piece of data has very little bearing on whether or not I am likely to accept it.

The philosophical idea that there are no more distances, that we are all just one world, that we are all brothers, is such a drag! I like differences.

Once you’ve grown to accept something and it becomes part of the system you’ve inherited, you don’t even notice it any longer.

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

I do have a lot of gays in my family now, but some will never come out.

Accept the terrible responsibility of life with eyes wide open.

Truth lives, in fact, for the most part on a credit system. Our thoughts and beliefs pass, so long as nothing challenges them, just as bank-notes pass so long as nobody refuses them.

You have your ideology and I have mine.

We cannot fashion our children after our desires, we must have them and love them as God has given them to us.

Nothing is more intolerable than to have to admit to yourself your own errors.

Yes, Mother. I can see you are flawed. You have not hidden it. That is your greatest gift to me.

I’m asking myself, ‚What do my girls, what do all our children deserve in their president? What kind of a president do we want for them?‘ Well, to start with, I think we want someone who is a unifying force in this country: someone who sees our differences not as a threat, but as a blessing.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination – and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past – are real and must be addressed.

If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your own.

My body is like breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I don’t think about it, I just have it.

My gold, my money couldn’t stop cancer from appearing on my body. If they can’t save me, then I don’t need them.

Germany is a great nation only because its people have so much Polish blood in their veins.

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.

The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.

The fact that over 50 per cent of the residents of Toronto are not from Canada, that is always a good thing, creatively, and for food especially. That is easily a city’s biggest strength, and it is Toronto’s unique strength.

Never in any case say I have lost such a thing, but I have returned it. Is your child dead? It is a return. Is your wife dead? It is a return. Are you deprived of your estate? Is not this also a return?

To such an extent does nature delight and abound in variety that among her trees there is not one plant to be found which is exactly like another; and not only among the plants, but among the boughs, the leaves and the fruits, you will not find one which is exactly similar to another.

I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others.

I think everyone should be with who they love.

Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it.

There isn’t anybody that looks like me without clothes on.

You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give.

I was willing to accept what I couldn’t change.

The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible.

Being at ease with not knowing is crucial for answers to come to you.

There is not a liberal America and a conservative America – there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and latino America and asian America – there’s the United States of America.

The big message of gospel is that you don’t have to keep fighting the universe; you can stop, and the universe is quite good to you. There is a loss of ego.

Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.

I was called a terrorist yesterday, but when I came out of jail, many people embraced me, including my enemies, and that is what I normally tell other people who say those who are struggling for liberation in their country are terrorists.

I think, in politics, half the people are gonna like you, and half the people are not gonna like you, no matter what you do or what you say… It’s like there are no right answers. If there were, everyone would choose the right answers. They’re all opinions.

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 love the women’s movement, and I never thought of it as belonging to any particular segment of the population.

I don’t go down the road of condemning.

For Christians, who believe they are created in the image of God, it is the Godhead, diversity in unity and the three-in-oneness of God, which we and all creation reflect.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

Do not try to live forever. You will not succeed.

We are all special cases.

The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?

Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.

If I write badly about blacks, homosexuals and women, it is because of these who I met were that. There are many ‚bads‘ – bad dogs, bad censorship; there are even ‚bad‘ white males. Only, when you write about ‚bad‘ white males, they don’t complain about it. And need I say that there are ‚good‘ blacks, ‚good‘ homosexuals and ‚good‘ women?

Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.

Many interviewers when they come to talk to me, think they’re being progressive by not mentioning in their stories any longer that I’m black. I tell them, ‚Don’t stop now. If I shot somebody you’d mention it.‘

I was born on a full moon. Both my children were born on full moons, too. Some people say that’s scary. It is what it is, man, I don’t be trippin‘. I couldn’t tell God when I wanted to be born.

The immigration issue is, I recognize, one that generates a lot of passion, but it does not make sense for us to want to push talent out.

The diversity of India, of our civilization, is actually a thing of beauty, which is something we are extremely proud of.

Here’s the thing. We do a movie with a predominantly black cast, and it’s put in a category of being a black film. When other movies are done with a predominantly white cast, we don’t call them a white film. I’m trying to remove the stigma off things they call black films.

The poetry you read has been written for you, each of you – black, white, Hispanic, man, woman, gay, straight.

Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.

India has 2,000,000 gods and worships them all. In religion, all other countries are paupers; India is the only millionaire.

To me, it’s OK to have differences. But we don’t have to be mad about it. You know? And I think that’s where sometimes we get so passionate that we – you know, it turns into anger.

Building capacity dissolves differences. It irons out inequalities.