All good criticism should be judged the way art is. You shouldn't read it the way you read history or science.

A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.

Black people don't have an accurate idea of their history, which has been either suppressed or distorted.

And why do we, who say we oppose tyranny and demand freedom of speech, allow people to go to prison and be vilified, and magazines to be closed down on the spot, for suggesting another version of history.

In a sense, words are encyclopedias of ignorance because they freeze perceptions at one moment in history and then insist we continue to use these frozen perceptions when we should be doing better.

That's all a man can hope for during his lifetime - to set an example - and when he is dead, to be an inspiration for history.

There's something quite exciting when you have a history with somebody and you see them do new and different things.

Music can be healing, and with my history and my knowledge of both sides of what looks like a gigantic divide in the world, I feel I can point a way forward to our common humanity again.

A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new when an age ends and when the soul of a nation long suppressed finds utterance.

May it not be that, just as we have to have faith in Him, God has to have faith in us and, considering the history of the human race so far, may it not be that 'faith' is even more difficult for Him than it is for us?