Question everything. Every stripe, every star, every word spoken. Everything.

Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands?

The mark of fear is not easily removed.

Words mean nothing. Action is the only thing. Doing. That's the only thing.

Question everything. Every stripe, every star, every word spoken. Everything.

There will always be men struggling to change, and there will always be those who are controlled by the past.

Sometimes you got to hurt something to help something. Sometimes you have to plow under one thing in order for something else to grow.

A myth is an old lie that people believe in. White people believe that they're better than anyone else on earth - and that's a myth.

All writers write about the past, and I try to make it come alive so you can see what happened.

Grace under pressure isn't just about bullfighters and men at war. It's about getting up every day to face a job or a white boss you don't like but have to face to feed your children so they'll grow up to be a better generation.

I believe that the writer should tell a story. I believe in plot. I believe in creating characters and suspense.

I had to see and feel and be with the thing that I wanted to write about.

I knew I wanted to be a writer and I knew if I had a wife and family, I would neglect something, and I was afraid it wouldn't be the writing.

I suppose I started writing seriously at 16 years old. I thought I wrote a novel at 16 and sent it to New York! They sent it back because it wasn't novel.

I think I'm a very religious person. I think I believe in God as much as any man does. I don't only believe in God, I know there's God.

I try to write something that would interest anybody and keep them turning the page. You must have a plot and good storyline.

I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to say something about home.

I was raised by a lady that was crippled all her life but she did everything for me and she raised me. She washed our clothes, cooked our food, she did everything for us. I don't think I ever heard her complain a day in her life. She taught me responsibility towards my brother and sisters and the community.

I write to try to find out who I am. One of my main themes is manliness. I think I'm trying to figure out what manliness really is.

I write with as much objectivity as I can.

In the beginning, I tried to be a more cosmopolitan writer, but I realized that I was a country boy, and I had to deal with things I knew about and where I came from.

The sharecropper may lower his eyes, but not because he's less of a man. That's just a condition of society that such things exist.

Today I must write a paragraph or a page better than I did yesterday.

What I miss today more than anything else - I don't go to church as much anymore - but that old-time religion, that old singing, that old praying which I love so much. That is the great strength of my being, of my writing.

When I'm sitting in the church alone, I can hear singing of the old people. I can hear their singing and I can hear their praying, and sometimes I hum one of their songs.

Why is it that as a culture we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands

Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing two men holding guns than holding hands

The Six Golden Rules of Writing: Read, read, read, and write, write, write.

There are two sides to every question.

You look at the whole Human Rights questions, I happened to be there at just the right time when the country was awakening - this goes to the first question you asked - the whole country was awakening to a hundred years of injustice that hadn't been resolved yet.

So, for example, a country was into recession right after I was sworn in, a dot-com bust had taken place. Then the attacks of September the 11th, and then of course the great financial meltdown in the -the fundamental question facing any presidency is how do you deal with the hand you're dealt?

If not for music, I would probably be a very frustrated scientist. It's one way to answer the question, 'What is the meaning of life?' I feel music answers it better.

Did you hear that? I didn't hear anything. Put that question another way.

If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing.

The real question isn't whether you love your kids or not, but how well you are able to demonstrate your love and caring so that your children really feel loved.

There is no question that everybody who works in show business is lucky because of the number of people who wish they where working in show business.

A single question can be more influential than a thousand statements.

He said there is 80 of us, ready to come down and the next thing I knew is that Jo Brown dashed in and said your family has already moved and you have to move, the boat is ready to take you out. I didn't have time to ask, even ask a question.

So begins a question which has of late become more and more urgent: what is the relation of aesthetics to politics?

When artists make art, they shouldn't question whether it is permissible to do one thing or another.

There's another issue here - and I have some limits as to what I can say - but there's some real question as to the viability of the chemical masks, the protective gear used by our soldiers.

This is largely the methodology I've used throughout my career - that is, starting with a question as to what might be the properties of a set of compounds that could be invented which were unusual and unpredictable. Many times I've felt a bit like Columbus setting sail.

In mathematics the art of proposing a question must be held of higher value than solving it.

The question is: Where would it get you if something that's a little bit ambiguous in the movie is made clear? It doesn't get you anywhere.

Well, WorldCom's growth exploded in the Clinton years, there's no question, there's no disputing that.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

People of little understanding are most apt to be angry when their sense is called into question.

By asking a novel question that you don't know the answer to, you discover whether you can formulate a way of finding the answer, and you stretch your own mind, and very often you learn something new.

Slavery is not the only question which comes up in this controversy. There is a far more important one to you, and that is, what shall be done with the free negro?