I feel that there are a few things in the world without cultural barriers.

Art should never try to be popular. The public should try to make itself artistic.

Exposure from a young age to the realities of the world is a super-big thing.

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.

When I was a child I asked my mother what homosexuality was about and she said – and this was 100 years ago in Germany and she was very open-minded – ‚It’s like hair color. It’s nothing. Some people are blond and some people have dark hair. It’s not a subject.‘ This was a very healthy attitude.

Good psychology should include all the methodological techniques, without having loyalty to one method, one idea, or one person.

Religion is compulsory in English schools, you know.

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.

Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.

Democracy don’t rule the world, You’d better get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence, But I guess that’s better left unsaid.

Everyone is different. Everyone has different teams they’ve played on, coaches they’ve played for.

What is this world that is hastening me toward I know not what, viewing me with contempt?

If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest shopping center in the world?

When I was growing up, there were no women in orchestras. Auditioners thought they could tell the difference between a woman playing and a man. Some intelligent person devised a simple solution: Drop a curtain between the auditioners and the people trying out. And, lo and behold, women began to get jobs in symphony orchestras.

‚Tis love that makes the world go round, my baby.

For ninety per cent of those who view him from outside, the Christian God looks like a great landowner administering his estates, the world. Now this conventional picture, which is too well justified by appearances, corresponds in no way to the dogmatic basis or point of view of the Gospels.

Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.

I’m very proud to be black, but black is not all I am. That’s my cultural historical background, my genetic makeup, but it’s not all of who I am nor is it the basis from which I answer every question.

I’ve got a feeling that music might not be the most interesting place to be in the world of things.

You know, one race will not be a survivor if the other one dies, and that’s something that we should think about.

There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.

How can one take delight in the world unless one flees to it for refuge?

I’ve still not written as well as I want to. I want to write so that the reader in Des Moines, Iowa, in Kowloon, China, in Cape Town, South Africa, can say, ‚You know, that’s the truth. I wasn’t there, and I wasn’t a six-foot black girl, but that’s the truth.‘

We have real enemies in the world. These enemies must be found. They must be pursued and they must be defeated.

When one travels around the world, one notices to what an extraordinary degree human nature is the same, whether in India or America, in Europe or Australia.

We have created characters and animated them in the dimension of depth, revealing through them to our perturbed world that the things we have in common far outnumber and outweigh those that divide us.

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

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.

Polygamy: An endeavour to get more out of life than there is in it.

The present condition of fame is merely fashion.

I believe in a passion for inclusion.

I didn’t know any gay people in my childhood.

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

I love the natural world – it comes from my culture, which grew out of a people enslaved.

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

The absurd depends as much on man as on the world. For the moment, it is all that links them together.

Because I was suspicious of the traditional Christian church, I tended to tar them all with the same brush. That was a mistake, because there are righteous people working in a whole rainbow of belief systems – from Hasidic Jews to right-wing Bible Belters to charismatic Catholics.

I am so tired of fear. And I don’t want my girls to live in a country, in a world, based on fear.

The people of Egypt are an intelligent people with a glorious history who left their mark on civilization.

Growing up, I decided, a long time ago, I wouldn’t accept any manmade differences between human beings, differences made at somebody else’s insistence or someone else’s whim or convenience.

The poor are discussed as this homogeneous mash, like porridge. The idea that they might be individuals, and be where they are for very different, diverse reasons, again seems to escape some people.

Our diversity is our strength. What a dull and pointless life it would be if everyone was the same.

Foreignness is all around. Only in the heart of the heart of the country, namely the heart of the United States, can you avoid such a thing. In the center of an empire, you can think of your experience as universal. Outside the empire or on the fringes of the empire, you cannot.

And I will do everything that I can as long as I am President of the United States to remind the American people that we are one nation under God, and we may call that God different names but we remain one nation.

What the Pope thinks of being gay does not matter to the world. It matters to the people who like the Pope and follow the Pope… It is not a reflection of all religious people.

Dancing was always part of my culture growing up in Barbados. When I shot my 1st video I worked really hard with my choreographer to perfect the routines.

Although the circumstances of our lives may seem very disengaged, with me standing here as the First Lady of the United States of America and you just getting through school, I want you to know we have very much in common. For nothing in my life ever would have predicted that I would be standing here as the first African-American First Lady.

The fact is: It’s true what they say about the United States. It is a land of opportunity. It is too various to get bored with it.

I hate the idea of genres.

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.

The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out.

Honolulu is a melting pot.

Men who wish to know about the world must learn about it in its particular details.

Love is the affinity which links and draws together the elements of the world… Love, in fact, is the agent of universal synthesis.

Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America.

Today, Negroes play on every big league club and in every minor league. With millions of other Negroes in other walks of life, we are willing to stand up and be counted for what we believe in. In baseball or out, we are no longer willing to wait until Judgment Day for equality – we want it here on earth as well as in Heaven.

Here’s the thing: every office I’ve run for I was the first to win. First person of color. First woman. First woman of color. Every time.

People don’t want drama 365 days a year. I’m a sense of relief; it’s my job to take your mind off what’s bad for that brief second you’re in the room with me, regardless of shape, race, colour or anything. It brings people together, and it makes me feel good about what I’m doing.

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.

America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world.

Britishness is just a way of putting things together and a certain don’t care attitude about clothes. You don’t care, you just do it and it looks great.