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.

A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges is not Christian. This is not in the Gospel.

I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.

It’s important that we invest in America – literally. The terrorists wanted to destroy our economy, and we can’t let our system fall apart. We also have to invest in one another.

We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.

We must conceive of this whole universe as one commonwealth of which both gods and men are members.

The New Deal repudiation of democracy has left the Republican Party alone the guardian of the Ark of the Covenant with its charter of freedom.

Being beautiful is not so fun when you’re in a business with all men.

Freedom is not enough.

I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage. But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that’s not what America’s about. Usually, our constitutions expand liberties, they don’t contract them.

Being acknowledged for your work is always a great accomplishment, whether it’s people in my city, kids in the street, all the way up to the Grammys.

We live in a world that has narrowed into a neighborhood before it has broadened into a brotherhood.

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.

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

Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.

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.

If we help an educated man’s daughter to go to Cambridge are we not forcing her to think not about education but about war? – not how she can learn, but how she can fight in order that she might win the same advantages as her brothers?

Feeling like you’re respected among the people who do the same thing you do is incredible and necessary.

Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.

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

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

We don’t believe in planners and deciders making the decisions on behalf of Americans.

If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.

Every particular in nature, a leaf, a drop, a crystal, a moment of time is related to the whole, and partakes of the perfection of the whole.

During bad circumstances, which is the human inheritance, you must decide not to be reduced. You have your humanity, and you must not allow anything to reduce that. We are obliged to know we are global citizens. Disasters remind us we are world citizens, whether we like it or not.

The Oslo Accords in 1993 determined that the Gaza Strip and the West Bank are a single territorial entity which cannot be divided. Immediately, the United States and Israel set about separating the two and making sure that they would not be united.

A lot of people in our industry haven’t had very diverse experiences. So they don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one’s understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.

I personally have always been in favor of people who are gay being permitted to marry legally – and I still feel that way.

All the blood is drained out of democracy – it dies – when only half the population votes.

I would just like to say something, ladies and gentlemen. Something that I think is very important. It is that, you, we – we own this country. We – we own it. It is not you owning it, and not politicians owning it. Politicians are employees of ours.

I believe in the spirit of equality and the spirit of this country as one of love and compassion and kindness.

We will invest in our people, quality education, job opportunity, family, neighborhood, and yes, a thing we call America.

For so many people, television and movies may be the only way they understand people who aren’t like them.

A real Christian is a person who can give his pet parrot to the town gossip.

The very design of neoliberal principles is a direct attack on democracy.

There is love enough in this world for everybody, if people will just look.

Well I do think, when there are more women, that the tone of the conversation changes, and also the goals of the conversation change. But it doesn’t mean that the whole world would be a lot better if it were totally run by women. If you think that, you’ve forgotten high school.

It’s good to remember that in crises, natural crises, human beings forget for awhile their ignorances, their biases, their prejudices. For a little while, neighbors help neighbors and strangers help strangers.

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.

Gays are some of the nicest, kindest, most loving people in the world.

Racism is real in this country.

When you single out any particular group of people for secondary citizenship status, that’s a violation of basic human rights.

Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners, and necessity has made us allies. Those whom God has so joined together, let no man put asunder.

I think there ought to be a strict separation or wall built between our religious faith and our practice of political authority in office. I don’t think the President of the United States should extoll Christianity if he happens to be a Christian at the expense of Judaism, Islam or other faiths.

We are all different. There is no such thing as a standard or run-of-the-mill human being, but we share the same human spirit.

In my neighborhood, when you’ve got something to say to a guy, you look him in the eye and you say it to him.

God is not upset that Gandhi was not a Christian, because God is not a Christian! All of God’s children and their different faiths help us to realize the immensity of God.

Women’s liberation is just a lot of foolishness. It’s men who are discriminated against. They can’t bear children. And no one is likely to do anything about that.

Every utopia – let’s just stick with the literary ones – faces the same problem: What do you do with the people who don’t fit in?

I’m going to try to unite all Americans.

I rely on other people every day of my life.

We have a big appetite for putting people down but, at the heart of everyone, there’s enough room for all of us to succeed.

I just genuinely feel that that’s what you do when you’re an artist: You stick up for the people around you.

One child must never be set above another, even in casual conversation, not to mention in speeches that circle the globe.

The intensity of the football and how the people live football in Liverpool – it is not a usual.

The answer I found is you stay away from the people who make fun of you, and you join these ad hoc groups who understand your craziness.

I want people to follow their dreams, yes… but I’m not interested in telling young black kids how to be rappers… I want to show them that there’s so many other paths you can take, besides a rapper or basketball player.

The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

In Japan, the writers have made up a literary community, a circle, a society. I think 90 percent of Japan’s writers live in Tokyo. Naturally, they make a community. There are groups and customs, and so they are tied up in a way.

I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.

I want to thank God, obviously for the health, for the talent He’s given me, for my family who supports me, for the things that basketball’s taught me on and off the court. For the people that I’ve been able to meet through the game of basketball.