“We did live in dire poverty. And one of the things that I hated was poverty. Some people hate spiders. Some people hate snakes. I hated poverty. I couldn't stand it. My mother couldn't stand the fact that we were doing poorly in school, and she prayed and she asked God to give her wisdom. What could she do to get her young sons to understand the importance of developing their minds so that they control their own lives? God gave her the wisdom. At least in her opinion. My brother and I didn't think it was that wise. Turn off the TV, let us watch only two or three TV programs during the week. And with all that spare time read two books a piece from the Detroit Public Libraries and submit to her written book reports, which she couldn't read but we didn't know that. I just hated this. My friends were out having a good time. Her friends would criticize her. My mother didn't care. But after a while I actually began to enjoy reading those books. Because we were very poor, but between the covers of those books I could go anywhere. I could be anybody. I could do anything. I began to read about people of great accomplishment. And as I read those stories, I began to see a connecting thread. I began to see that the person who has the most to do with you, and what happens to you in life, is you. You make decisions. You decide how much energy you want to put behind that decision. And I came to understand that I had control of my own destiny. And at that point I didn't hate poverty anymore, because I knew it was only temporary. I knew I could change that. It was incredibly liberating for me. Made all the difference.” 

“When someone is being particularly mean and nasty, I simply think to myself, he or she used to be a cute little baby, I wonder what happened?”

“There is no freedom without bravery.”

“mother instilled in me a deep respect for the potential of the human brain, and that respect has deepened over the years to an attitude I can only describe as awe. Every time I open a child’s head and see a brain, I marvel at the mystery: This is what makes every one of us who we are. This is what holds all our memories, all our thoughts, all our dreams. This is what makes us different from each other in millions of ways. And yet if I could expose my brain and your brain and place them side by side, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference—even though we might be very different people. That still amazes me. Inside each human brain are billions and billions of complex interconnections, neurons and synapses, which science has only barely begun to understand. When you add to that the mystery of mind”

“We can help our nation quite a bit if we refrain from getting into our respective corners and throwing hand grenades at each other, and instead try to understand the other’s viewpoint, reject the stifling of political correctness, and engage in intelligent civil discussion.”

“ObamaCare is, really, I think the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery - and it is slavery, in a way, because it is making all of us subservient to the government. It was never about health care; it was about control.”

“Thomas Jefferson: “A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.”

“When I was young, I thought classical music was only the background noise for cartoons.”

“I came to realize that if people could make me angry they could could control me. Why should I give someone else such power over my life?”

“There is no such thing as an average human being. If you have a normal brain, you are superior.”

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angles, but am note nice, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but am not nice, I am nothing. If I give all I posses to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but am not nice, I gain nothing.”

“being a member of a minority race doesn’t mean being a minority achiever.”

“Beware the abuse of Power. Both by those we disagree with, as well as those we may agree with”

“It does not matter where we come from or what we look like. If we recognize our abilities, are willing to learn and to use what we know in helping others, we will always have a place in the world.”