“I am the product of many whose lives have touched mine, from the famous, distinguished, and powerful to the little known and the poor.”

“If I take a finger and touch you, you won't even know you've been tapped. If I take two fingers, you will know that something touched you. But if I bring all of those fingers together in a fist, I can give you a terrible blow!”

“...even if you are a token, you have an important function to fulfill.”

“We cannot afford to be separate. . . . We have to see that all of us are in the same boat.”

“My mother helped me understand how not to show off what I knew, but how to use it so that others might benefit.”

“We are not a problem people, we are people with problems.”

“You never teach a subject, you always teach a child. You teach children in a way that they will learn, and then things will fall in place for them.”