I certainly agree that putting everything into little genres is counterproductive. You’re not going to get too many surprises if you only focus on the stuff that fits inside the box that you know.

You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.

How could you have a soccer team if all were goalkeepers? How would it be an orchestra if all were French horns?

When you’re born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you’re born in America, you get a front row seat.

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.

We are a nation founded as a rebuke to tyranny. A nation of revolutionaries who refused sovereign reign from afar. Hear me – we’re a nation that says give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. A nation built on our differences, guided by the belief that we’re all created equal.

We believe that every single child has boundless promise, no matter who they are, where they come from, or how much money their parents have. We’ve got to remember that. We believe that each of these young people is a vital part of the great American story.

I can’t help the way you was born if you was gay.

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.

Why, if someone is good in one field can they not be accepted or given the slightest opportunity to express and be creative in other fields?

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

You need to think outside the box. You need to think differently if you want to sustain what, for me, is my peak performance: the very best that I can achieve as an athlete every day.

My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my ‚blackness‘ than ever before. I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my white professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don’t belong.

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.‘

If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.

My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too.

I think the whole stigma of ‚black movies‘ is slowly being lost. When you look at movies like ’12 Years A Slave,‘ to ‚The Butler,‘ to ‚The Best Man,‘ to ‚Ride Along,‘ to even ‚Think Like a Man‘ from last year – these movies are just good movies.

There are as many opinions as there are experts.

No one has been barred on account of his race from fighting or dying for America, there are no white or colored signs on the foxholes or graveyards of battle.

It’s absolutely normal that different human beings want to go different ways.

It’s always going to be a fight for anyone who isn’t an older white man. I want to fight for anyone who doesn’t have a fight.

Let’s teach kids, at the kindergarten level, what the contributions of people of color were to building the United States of America.

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.

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

I’ve been really fortunate to be able to do different kinds of films in different scales, different genres, different kinds of roles, and that is important to me.

Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.

Above all, this country is our own. Nobody has to get up in the morning and worry what his neighbors think of him. Being a Jew is no problem here.

All partisan movements add to the fullness of our understanding of society as a whole. They never detract; or, in any case, one must not allow them to do so. Experience adds to experience.

Maybe every city has a unique sensibility, but we don’t have names for what they are or haven’t identified them all. We can’t pinpoint exactly what makes each city’s people unique yet.

There is always another way to say the same thing that doesn’t look at all like the way you said it before. I don’t know what the reason for this is. I think it is somehow a representation of the simplicity of nature.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology accepts blacks in the top ten percent of students, but at MIT this puts them in the bottom ten percent of the class.

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.

There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools and she was bused to school every day. That little girl was me.

I’m not looking to exclude people, I’m looking to include them.

To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater.

Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.

As much as I’m a black person from America, I’m a black person from Africa, too.

Everything is possible, from angels to demons to economists and politicians.

I’m all about surprises. If you watch a horror movie, and it’s called ‚Kiss Land,‘ it’s probably going to be the most terrifying thing you’ve ever seen in your life.

If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.

I don’t want enemies. I want friends, and I want them in all shapes, sizes, and colors, and loving whoever they want to.

We need to reject any politics that targets people because of race or religion. This isn’t a matter of political correctness. It’s a matter of understanding what makes us strong. The world respects us not just for our arsenal; it respects us for our diversity and our openness and the way we respect every faith.

I would not like to be the only woman on the court.

I loved the fact that Obama is multi-racial. I thought that was terrific, as my wife is the same racial make-up.

You can be a rank insider as well as a rank outsider.

Now, as a nation, we don’t promise equal outcomes, but we were founded on the idea everybody should have an equal opportunity to succeed. No matter who you are, what you look like, where you come from, you can make it. That’s an essential promise of America. Where you start should not determine where you end up.

The bottom line is that everyone thinks differently.

It is a rare mind indeed that can render the hitherto non-existent blindingly obvious. The cry ‚I could have thought of that‘ is a very popular and misleading one, for the fact is that they didn’t, and a very significant and revealing fact it is too.

We are trying to construct a more inclusive society. We are going to make a country in which no one is left out.

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.

Among the friends of Union, there is great diversity of sentiment and of policy in regard to slavery and the African race among us.

No matter the nationality, no matter the religion, no matter the ethnic background, America brings out the best in people.

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.

It’s very important to know the neighbor next door and the people down the street and the people in another race.

If proud Americans can be who they are and boldly stand at the altar with who they love then surely, surely we can give everyone in this country a fair chance at that great American Dream.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.

My parents taught me never to judge others based on whom they love, what color their skin is, or their religion.

If a man reaches the heart of his own religion, he has reached the heart of the others, too. There is only one God, and there are many paths to him.

We view things not only from different sides, but with different eyes; we have no wish to find them alike.

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating – people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.