I need to work outside government, on my own.

To all those mothers and fathers who are struggling with teen-agers, I say, just be patient: even though it looks like you can’t do anything right for a number of years, parents become popular again when kids reach 20.

I don’t care what my children choose to do professionally, just as long as within their choices they understand they’ve got to give something back.

The outside world told black kids when I was growing up that we weren’t worth anything. But our parents said it wasn’t so, and our churches and our schoolteachers said it wasn’t so. They believed in us, and we, therefore, believed in ourselves.

It is utterly exhausting being Black in America – physically, mentally, and emotionally. While many minority groups and women feel similar stress, there is no respite or escape from your badge of color.

When Jesus Christ asked little children to come to him, he didn’t say only rich children, or White children, or children with two-parent families, or children who didn’t have a mental or physical handicap. He said, Let all children come unto me.

You can achieve much in life if you don’t mind doing the work and giving someone else the credit.

The future which we hold in trust for our own children will be shaped by our fairness to other people’s children.

If it’s wrong for 13-year-old inner-city girls to have babies without the benefit of marriage, it’s wrong for rich celebrities, and we ought to stop putting them on the cover of People magazine.

I hadn’t planned on going to law school. I wanted to study 19th-century Russian literature.