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

Unfortunately, the people of Louisiana are not racists.

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

My father wasn’t a cruel man. And I loved him. But he was a pretty tough character. His own father was even tougher – one of those Victorians, hard as iron – but my dad was tough enough.

I’ve missed out on a lot of things, going out with friends.

Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.

Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.

Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking.

The African is my brother but he is my younger brother by several centuries.

We’re hardwired for connection. There’s no arguing with the bioscience. But we can want it so badly we’re trying to hot-wire it.

Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.

Trying to meet new women, it’s always a little more difficult as opposed to calling somebody I knew that’s single and trying to rebuild that connection.

When you sing with a group of people, you learn how to subsume yourself into a group consciousness because a capella singing is all about the immersion of the self into the community. That’s one of the great feelings – to stop being me for a little while and to become us. That way lies empathy, the great social virtue.

When you’re doing a film and the majority of the film is cast black, for me, it’s most important to get people to view those movies as just movies, as just good movies. At the end of the day, regardless of the color of the cast, we’re all doing the same thing in this business: trying to make a good film.

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.

I see clearly that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity.

The world has grown suspicious of anything that looks like a happily married life.

We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them.

Young love is wild and outrageous, laughing at moderation and blinding us to common sense.

We need to understand that we as citizens and as a government in any community throughout this country have no more important obligation than to educate those who are going to replace us.

Alimony – the ransom that the happy pay to the devil.

Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then.

As unique as we all are, an awful lot of us want the same things. We want to shake up our current less-than-fulfilling lives. We want to be happier, more loving, forgiving and connected with the people around us.

To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best.

Sucking up to the biggies won’t get us anywhere.

I’m pretty sure I don’t have any songs that are about how much I love someone. They’re all either about, like, ‚I hate you,‘ or ‚You make me hate me.‘

I belong to a gospel choir. They know I am an atheist but they are very tolerant.

Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in excellence; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good in themselves.

We still have many neighborhoods that are racially identified. We still have many schools that even though the days of state-enforced segregation are gone, segregation because of geographical boundaries remains.

We boil at different degrees.

I do not doubt that we would become more useful if we praised God more, and others would join us, for they would see that God has blessed us.

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

Logically, harmony must come from the heart… Harmony very much based on trust. As soon as use force, creates fear. Fear and trust cannot go together.

All mankind love a lover.

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.

Women have always been the strong ones of the world. The men are always seeking from women a little pillow to put their heads down on. They are always longing for the mother who held them as infants.

It doesn’t matter how long my hair is or what colour my skin is or whether I’m a woman or a man.

It isn’t necessary to have relatives in Kansas City in order to be unhappy.

I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.

Is it not important to find out how to listen not only to what is being said but to everything – to the noise in the streets, to the chatter of birds, to the noise of the tramcar, to the restless sea, to the voice of your husband, to your wife, to your friends, to the cry of a baby?

Those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.

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

The magic of America is that we’re a free and open society with a mixed population. Part of our security is our freedom.

I will never be happy without having someone. Going to sleep alone kills me.

Remember that children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get.

True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity, before it is entitled to the appellation.

Marrying an old bachelor is like buying second-hand furniture.

You can’t blame gravity for falling in love.

Why do Jewish divorces cost so much? They’re worth it.

Like associates with like.

Impart as much as you can of your spiritual being to those who are on the road with you, and accept as something precious what comes back to you from them.

I have lived and slept in the same bed with English countesses and Prussian farm women… no woman has excited passions among women more than I have.

What ever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man.

Quarrel? Nonsense; we have not quarreled. If one is not to get into a rage sometimes, what is the good of being friends?

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

Women are the engine driving the growth in California’s economy. Women make California’s economy unique.

The death of my father is probably the biggest thing that I ever faced. Daddy and I were best friends.

If you want to appeal to everyone, you can’t do a world tour and expect black people to show up at every date – when you’re in Australia, when you’re in Dubai, when you’re in Indonesia.

What difference is there between us, save a restless dream that follows my soul but fears to come near you?

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.

Funny is the world I live in. You’re funny, I’m interested. You’re not funny, I’m not interested.