When my ancestors came from Africa, they were shackled by our neck, our wrists, and our ankles in steel chains. I’ve turned those steel chains into gold to symbolize the fact that I’m still a slave, only my price tag is higher.

Sometimes in the past when I played something might make me lose focus, or I would go home after a game where I thought I could have played better and I would let it hang over my head for a long time when it shouldn’t.

Niger is not an isolated island of desperation. It lies within a sea of problems across Africa – particularly the ‚forgotten emergencies‘ in poor countries or regions with little strategic or material appeal.

If my world were to cave in tomorrow, I would look back on all the pleasures, excitements and worthwhilenesses I have been lucky enough to have had. Not the sadness, not my miscarriages or my father leaving home, but the joy of everything else. It will have been enough.

In history people dressed much better than we do today.

Before printing was discovered, a century was equal to a thousand years.

Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.

Let each become all that he was created capable of being.

I think really, China, Chinese, I think they really have a long history of civilization, rich culture.

In the early 1940s, as a young teenager, I was utterly appalled by the racist and jingoist hysteria of the anti-Japanese propaganda. The Germans were evil, but treated with some respect: They were, after all, blond Aryan types, just like our imaginary self-image. Japanese were mere vermin, to be crushed like ants.

In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.

People seem to know about May Day everywhere except where it began, here in the United States of America. That’s because those in power have done everything they can to erase its real meaning.

I look like a woman, but I think like a man.

I think all women go through periods where we hate this about ourselves, we don’t like that. It’s great to get to a place where you dismiss anything you’re worried about. I find flaws attractive. I find scars attractive.

We’ve persevered because of a belief we share with the Iraqi people – a belief that out of the ashes of war, a new beginning could be born in this cradle of civilization. Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it’s time to turn the page.

The world around me has changed, and I have learned to adapt but not change. But I’m changing into the woman I am meant to be.

When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we are, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying.

Glam really did plant seeds for a new identity. I think a lot of kids needed that – that sense of reinvention. Kids learned that however crazy you may think it is, there is a place for what you want to do and who you want to be.

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.

No trace of slavery ought to mix with the studies of the freeborn man. No study, pursued under compulsion, remains rooted in the memory.

All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.

The deceit and distortion surrounding the American invasion of Vietnam is by now so familiar that it has lost its power to shock.

Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend.

I’ve heard there are troubles of more than one kind; some come from ahead, and some come from behind. But I’ve brought a big bat. I’m all ready, you see; now my troubles are going to have troubles with me!

You can change your world by changing your words… Remember, death and life are in the power of the tongue.

Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.

Ronald Reagan used to alarm his Soviet counterparts by saying that surely they’d both unite against an invasion from Mars.

Skepticism is a virtue in history as well as in philosophy.

Evolution was far more thrilling to me than the biblical account. Who would not rather be a rising ape than a falling angel? To my juvenile eyes, Darwin was proved true every day. It doesn’t take much to make us flip back into monkeys again.

For Africa to move forward, you’ve really got to get rid of malaria.

I’m not intimidated by how people perceive me.

I had to prove you could be a new kind of black man. I had to show the world.

That’s when you know you’re the greatest: when you’re the greatest, and people still put odds against you.

In the duel of sex woman fights from a dreadnought and man from an open raft.

There are many victories worse than a defeat.

The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there… and still on your feet.

Every man gotta right to decide his own destiny.

The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.

I defy gravity.

I’ve 20,000 hours of clinical practice; you’re not naive after the first few thousand. I’ve helped people deal with things that most people can’t imagine.

As a child of God, I am greater than anything that can happen to me.

I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.

Key is never be afraid of being yourself. Never!

It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines or old laws, but to break up both and make new ones.

Fashion is always of the time in which you live. It is not something standing alone. But the grand problem, the most important problem, is to rejeuvenate women. To make women look young. Then their outlook changes. They feel more joyous.

Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health.

I walk tall; I got a tall attitude.

Character is power.

Opera happens because a large number of things amazingly fail to go wrong.

Cowards die many times before their actual deaths.

England was the first true colonial power to use its dominion over a large part of Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, North America, and many Caribbean islands, in the first half of the 20th century.

People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles.

It’s an endless proving of myself, that I really am a musician, that I have something to offer in the room. That women can be musicians, women can be rock stars, women can be more than an objectified idea of a pop star.

‚Born this Way‘ is about being yourself, and loving who you are and being proud.

I am sure there’s going to be times when I do things wrong that no one’s going to like and everyone’s going to think I’m terrible and rubbish but I know I’m going to go through those times, and it’s just about understanding that that’s going to happen.

Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.

My mother was very strong. Once, she picked up a coconut and smashed it against my father’s head. It taught me about women defending themselves and not collapsing in a heap.

When I was writing the Destiny’s Child songs, it was a big thing to be that young and taking control. And the label at the time didn’t know that we were going to be that successful, so they gave us all control. And I got used to it.

The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history.

When I was writing ‚Kitchen Confidential,‘ I was in my 40s, I had never paid rent on time, I was 10 years behind on my taxes, I had never owned my own furniture or a car.

Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.