If a child from an Amazonian hunter-gatherer tribe comes to Boston, is raised in Boston, that child will be indistinguishable in language capacities from my children growing up here, and vice versa.

The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.

Words do two major things: They provide food for the mind and create light for understanding and awareness.

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

What I believe is that marriage is between a man and a woman, but what I also believe is that we have an obligation to make sure that gays and lesbians have the rights of citizenship that afford them visitations to hospitals, that allow them to be, to transfer property between partners, to make certain that they’re not discriminated on the job.

Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn’t matter which color does the hating. It’s just plain wrong.

Sometimes it’s a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence.

We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.

A lot of Jews are great friends of mine.

Words are more treacherous and powerful than we think.

Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.

If you want to talk about something new, you have to make up a new kind of language.

And poets, in my view, and I think the view of most people, do speak God’s language – it’s better, it’s finer, it’s language on a higher plane than ordinary people speak in their daily lives.

The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without his teacher.

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

As soon as you have a language that has a past tense and a future tense you’re going to say, ‚Where did we come from, what happens next?‘ The ability to remember the past helps us plan the future.

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.

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.

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

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

Music fills in for words a lot of the time when people don’t know what to say, and I think music can be more eloquent than words.

In this country, it doesn’t make any difference where you were born. It doesn’t make any difference who your parents were. It doesn’t make any difference if, like me, you couldn’t even speak English until you were in your twenties.

I do not expect the white media to create positive black male images.

There are as many opinions as there are experts.

We are all alike, on the inside.

We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.

A black person grows up in this country – and in many places – knowing that racism will be as familiar as salt to the tongue. Also, it can be as dangerous as too much salt. I think that you must struggle for betterment for yourself and for everyone.

When you have shot one bird flying you have shot all birds flying. They are all different and they fly in different ways but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as the first.

I would heartily welcome the union of East and West provided it is not based on brute force.

There are many levels of Christianity. There are many notions about God. To believe that God is a person is just one of the notions of God that you can find in Christianity. So, we should not say that there is one Christianity. There are many Christianities.

Nothing is pleasant that is not spiced with variety.

All of us, no matter how we look born into this world, feel something like the Hunchback. It doesn’t matter if you have a beautiful face or not.

It’s funny because I’ve made a living off of words, but words get in the way of what you really want to say.

I don’t know why you use a fancy French word like detente when there’s a good English phrase for it – cold war.

War is what happens when language fails.

When you’re traveling constantly, every day you become inspired, and it shows in my work, sonically, lyrically, visually. Conversations with women with different accents and stories told in those accents. I like to create characters based on different people I’ve met, and relationships. I like to tell stories loosely based on real-life events.

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 try to speak in a way that people can understand.

Honestly, I like everything, boyish girls, girlish boys, the heavy and the skinny.

No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

People from all over the world come to London wanting to make their own mark on it, and they add to the energy and vitality of the capital. It’s got a bit busier since the ’60s, but the more the merrier!

The child who desires education will be bettered by it; the child who dislikes it disgraced.

Many parents and teachers have become irritated to the point of distraction at the way the weed-style growth of ‚like‘ has spread through the idiom of the young. And it’s true that in some cases the term has become simultaneously a crutch and a tic, driving out the rest of the vocabulary as candy expels vegetables.

Language is a weapon of politicians, but language is a weapon in much of human affairs.

Coffee is a language in itself.

The short words are best, and the old words are the best of all.

I have been influenced in my thinking by both west and east.

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.‘

Research shows that there is only half as much variation in student achievement between schools as there is among classrooms in the same school. If you want your child to get the best education possible, it is actually more important to get him assigned to a great teacher than to a great school.

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

Money has a language of its own.

When it comes to developing character strength, inner security and unique personal and interpersonal talents and skills in a child, no institution can or ever will compare with, or effectively substitute for, the home’s potential for positive influence.

To like an individual because he’s black is just as insulting as to dislike him because he isn’t white.

In my work and in myself I reflect black people, women and men, as I reflect others. One day even the most self-protective ones will look into the mirror I provide and not be afraid.

I’ve been a lot more into Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, which was a bit complicated for me to understand the language of each social media, because they all talk in different ways. It’s a nice way for me to tell people I appreciate them, which I forget to do sometimes.

I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink.

The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one. But that is the best of all.

The educated Southerner has no use for an ‚r‘, except at the beginning of a word.

I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries.

People look at the same passage, and one person will say this is the best thing he’s ever read, and another person will say it’s absolutely idiotic. I mean, there’s no way to reconcile those two things. You just have to forget the whole business of what people are saying.