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.

Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervor.

When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that the old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had one before.

I mean, what would I be doing if I couldn’t write? But that fortunately hasn’t proved to be the case and I can read any day. I still read a lot, and I can write any day, but much more slowly and fewer words.

Art is man’s expression of his joy in labor.

Great teachers emanate out of knowledge, passion and compassion.

As a musician and a songwriter, it is an act of the ego to believe that other people might be interested in your point of view. But it is usually an empathetic nature that gets you going in the first place. Music keeps the heart porous in many ways.

I am a professional sportswriter, among other things, and I take the games seriously. It is only one of my many powerful addictions, and I don’t mind admitting any of them.

Good governance with good intentions is the hallmark of our government. Implementation with integrity is our core passion.

The joy and love that I get from playing football are unbelievable. It is such a feeling that I want to give everything that I have got. I just enjoy it, I am living a life that I never even dreamt of.

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

I think there’s more women that watch me than men, but I don’t look at myself as just a minister to women. My ministry began that way, but I really feel like the Word of God is for everybody.

Music will never go away, and I will never stop making music; it’s just what capacity or what arena you decide to do it.

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.

I think that the idea of having a different approach to every single one of my albums is so exciting to me. I never want to make the same record twice. Why do it? What’s the point?

You have your ideology and I have mine.

In my early teens, I knew I wanted to do television production. I loved cameras, editing and producing, anything that had to do with television production. My friend had a production studio across town, and we’d go over there at night and shoot and edit. I produced my father’s televised service for 17 years.

I am a beneficiary of the American people’s generosity, and I hope we can have comprehensive immigration legislation that allows this country to continue to be enriched by those who were not born here.

Won’t it be wonderful when black history and native American history and Jewish history and all of U.S. history is taught from one book. Just U.S. history.

I think that by staying true to myself and making music from my heart, the blessings come.

There is spontaneity to my work.

Not bragging by any means, but I could have done a lot of other stuff as far as working in films go and working in television… I had chances to do that stuff, but I like baseball, I really do.

I’m really interested in smells. I think I’d like to own a perfumery someday.

I tried acting, liked it, and stuck with it. I saw it as the way I would keep that promise to myself of getting back at those who had made my school life a misery.

I get that racism exists, but it’s not a catalyst for my content. I don’t need to talk about race to have material. My style of comedy is more self-deprecating. I think that makes me more relatable. When you deal with ‚topics‘ – race, white versus black – you’re not separating from the pack. You’re doing what everybody else is doing.

I’m born with a pencil in my hand. I did lots of sketching.

I’ve always wanted to make a career in the arts, and I think that my only hope at doing that is to make it more about the work.

I always felt that if I was going to do a movie, I wanted it to be authentic.

The Egyptians could run to Egypt, the Syrians into Syria. The only place we could run was into the sea, and before we did that we might as well fight.

I guess you could say it’s always been my destiny to be a performer.

America was indebted to immigration for her settlement and prosperity. That part of America which had encouraged them most had advanced most rapidly in population, agriculture and the arts.

Part of our tradition as black women is that we are universalists. Black children, yellow children, red children, brown children, that is the black woman’s normal, day-to-day relationship. In my family alone, we are about four different colors.

True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.

You might sooner get lightning out of incense smoke than true action or passion out of your modern English religion.

We don’t need to share the same opinions as others, but we need to be respectful.

I’m opposed to any policy that would deny in our country any human being from access to public safety, public education, or public health, period.

Cooking is about passion, so it may look slightly temperamental in a way that it’s too assertive to the naked eye.

I always want to create and do things, or draw.

Many people have an intense feeling about what they’re best at. Too often, they’re driven away from it by other people.

Honolulu is a melting pot.

Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood.

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.

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

If a leader doesn’t convey passion and intensity then there will be no passion and intensity within the organization and they’ll start to fall down and get depressed.

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.

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

You cannot talk about race without talking about privilege. And when people start talking about privilege, they get paralyzed by shame.

Because we’re Jewish, my father immigrated to Holland in 1933, where he became the managing director of the Dutch Opekta Company, which manufactures products used in making jam.

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that oral teachers and sign teachers found it difficult to sit down in the same room without quarreling, and there was intolerance upon both sides. To say ‚oral method‘ to a sign teacher was like waving a red flag in the face of a bull, and to say ‚sign language‘ to an oralist aroused the deepest resentment.

I believe that God breathed life into every person and that every person is made in the image of God and you have accept them as they are, on their journey. I’m not here to preach hate or push people down.

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 cook, I create, I’m incredibly excited by what I do, I’ve still got a lot to achieve.

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

I write for the same reason I breathe – because if I didn’t, I would die.

The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.

I guess, taking away all the theatrics or the costuming and the outer layers of what I do, I’m a writer… I write.

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?

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

We can’t have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don’t mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.

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

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.