Where I grew up – I grew up on the north side of Akron, lived in the projects. So those scared and lonely nights – that’s every night. You hear a lot of police sirens, you hear a lot of gunfire. Things that you don’t want your kids to hear growing up.

You create a community with music, not just at concerts but by talking about it with your friends.

I hated school. Even to this day, when I see a school bus it’s just depressing to me. The poor little kids.

When the human race neglects its weaker members, when the family neglects its weakest one – it’s the first blow in a suicidal movement. I see the neglect in cities around the country, in poor white children in West Virginia and Virginia and Kentucky – in the big cities, too, for that matter.

The outpouring of support from millions of people in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti has been impressive.

We are all geniuses up to the age of ten.

Here in America, we don’t let our differences tear us apart. Not here. Because we know that our greatness comes from when we appreciate each other’s strengths, when we learn from each other, when we lean on each other, because in this country, it’s never been each person for themselves. No, we’re all in this together. We always have been.

When I was nine years old, living on the south side of Chicago, my father was a minister and my mother used to scrub floors. I had seven brothers and four sisters. I told my mama, ‚One of these days I’m going to be big and strong and buy you a beautiful house.‘ That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do with my life, is to take care of my mother.

I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot.

It’s not just human nature to associate in tribes. It’s deeper than that.

However far back I go into my childhood, nothing seems to me more characteristic of, or more familiar in, my interior economy than the appetite or irresistible demand for some ‚Unique all-sufficing and necessary reality.‘

I have a big following among the biogeeks of this world. Nobody ever puts them in books.

When I was 5, some financial things happened, and I moved seven times in a year. We moved from apartment to apartment, sometimes living with friends. My mom would always say, ‚Don’t get comfortable, because we may not be here long.‘

Time was when they that feared the Lord spake often to one another; I am afraid that now they more often speak one against another.

Young people are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and more fit for new projects than for settled business.

When I was growing up, I wasn’t an extrovert. If anything, I was an introverted kid and a very average pupil at school. I was very quiet.

My dad had a church of 90 people when I was born. It was just, over the years it continued to grow.

The time is long overdue to stop looking for progress through racial or ethnic leaders. Such leaders have too many incentives to promote polarizing attitudes and actions that are counterproductive for minorities and disastrous for the country.

During bad circumstances, which is the human inheritance, you must decide not to be reduced. You have your humanity, and you must not allow anything to reduce that. We are obliged to know we are global citizens. Disasters remind us we are world citizens, whether we like it or not.

I spent my childhood in the country and started reading even before going to school. There was nothing else in my life but sketching and reading.

For me, New York is comfortable, not strange.

I don’t spend that much time being introspective, believe it or not. All I know is that I grew up not questioning God because that’s how you are. God was there like the birds and the wind.

When I was growing up in Pennsylvania, auditioning for Broadway was my dream.

My first phone was two tin cans tied together with string, and it worked pretty good.

Childhood is the sleep of reason.

I realized the other day that I’ve lived in New York longer than I’ve lived anywhere else. It’s amazing: I am a New Yorker. It’s strange; I never thought I would be.

It’s always a struggle growing up in Akron.

From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books. Pleased with the ‚Pilgrim’s Progress,‘ my first collection was of John Bunyan’s works in separate little volumes.

We must always remember that America is a great nation today not because of what government did for people but because of what people did for themselves and for one another.

Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men.

The community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles.

Today, writers want to impress other writers.

I began writing at the age of 5, but there was a dark period between the ages of 8 and 16 when I didn’t write. I started again at 16 and have no idea why, but it was suddenly the only thing I wanted to do.

Green Eggs and Ham was the story of my life. I wouldn’t eat a thing when I was a kid, but Dr. Seuss inspired me to try cauliflower!

Stay active. Read the Word. Worship with other believers. Continue to give. Keep learning and growing. Your faith will be unleashed!

Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors.

Jesus teaches us another way: Go out. Go out and share your testimony, go out and interact with your brothers, go out and share, go out and ask. Become the Word in body as well as spirit.

People who bowl vote. Bowlers are not the cultural elite.

Kids will remind you that, even though you’ve gone down a road 100 times, it’s brand new for them – and that’s healthy.

As a kid from Compton, you can get all the success in the world and still question your worth.

My entire childhood was steeped in poverty. For me, poverty, in a way, was the first inspiration of my life, a commitment to do something for the poor.

So while an incredible amount of progress has been made, on this fifth anniversary, I wanted to come here and tell the people of this city directly: My administration is going to stand with you – and fight alongside you – until the job is done. Until New Orleans is all the way back, all the way.

For me, already being part of a single parent household and knowing it was just me and my mom, you’d would wake up times and hope that the next day you’d be able to be alongside your mother because she was out trying to make sure that I was taken care of. But all I cared about was her being home.

For too long in this society, we have celebrated unrestrained individualism over common community.

To tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection: it is plunder.

A child wants things to be a certain way. When you get to be an adult, you just understand that some people are good, some are not, and you can’t be naive.

I’d go to, like, six different schools in one year. We were on welfare, and my mom never ever worked.

I hated to be treated as a child. I thought it was the worst situation.

I’ve known for years that the university underserved the community, because we assumed that university education is for 18- to 22-year-olds, which is a proposition that’s so absurd it is absolutely mind-boggling that anyone ever conceptualized it. Why wouldn’t you take university courses throughout your entire life?

When I was a young kid, I did not even dream about playing for my country. It was such a farfetched thing to play for India.

My doorman is more important to me than any head of any company. He keeps us safe.

I’ve met some Evertonians in the street, and they’ve been friendly. I’ve had taxi drivers who have been Everton fans. They’ve been really nice.

Country radio is much more like a family than any other group of people that I’ve met.

Any of us can be happy and have a good attitude when everything is going our way. But I believe it’s the real test of your character and of your faith to say, ‚Things are not going our way, but I’m still being good to people; I’m still attending church; I still have a good attitude.‘

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.

The voting booth joint is a great leveler; the whole neighborhood – rich, poor, old, young, decrepit and spunky – they all turn out in one day.

I live in Puerto Rico, my family lives in Puerto Rico, my friends. What happens in Puerto Rico matters to me.

What we need is a system of thought – you might even call it a religion – that can bind humans together. A system that would fit the Republic of Chad as well as the United States: a system that would supply our idealistic young people with something to believe in.

I am completely fascinated by the differences and comparisons between real life and fairy tales because we’re raised as little girls to think that we’re a princess and that Prince Charming is going to sweep us off our feet.

I go down the street, people see me: ‚Hey, I pity-‚ right on, man, that’s a compliment to me.

I am just a child who has never grown up. I still keep asking these ‚how‘ and ‚why‘ questions. Occasionally, I find an answer.