“I have listened and I have been quiet all my life. But now I will speak.”

“All my life, I always wanted to be somebody. Now I see that I should have been more specific. ”

“All my life I always wanted to be someone. I see now I should have been more specific.”

“Of all the idiots I have met in my life, and the Lord knows they have not been few or little, I think that I have been the biggest.”

“[Speaking] is never without fear; of visibility, of the harsh light of scrutiny and perhaps judgment, of pain, of death. But we have lived through all of those already, in silence, except death. And I remind myself all the time now, that if I were to have been born mute, and had maintained an oath of silence my whole life for safety, I would still have suffered, and I would still die.”

“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now...Come further up, come further in!”