“You don't stick a knife in a man's back nine inches and then pull it out six inches and say you're making progress ... No matter how much respect, no matter how much recognition, whites show towards me, as far as I am concerned, as long as it is not shown to everyone of our people in this country, it doesn't exist for me.”

“It makes people feel good to build somethin big. Makes people feel like they're makin progress, I reckon.Progress toward what?It doesn't matter. Up higher or down deeper or out farther. As long as you're movin, it don't matter much where you're goin or what's chasin you. That's why they call it progress. It keeps goin of it's own accord.”

“You don't learn knife skills at cooking school, because they give you only six onions and no matter how hard you focus on those six onions there are only six, and you're not going to learn as much as when you cut up a hundred.”

“Sometimes it doesn't matter too much what choice you make, as long as you make it quick and stick to it.”

“No matter how much he loves you, sometimes he'd just rather have an inch of rain than anything else in the world.”

“Inch by inch it's all a cinch, by the yard it's hard. Go for it -- no matter how slow or long the process seems at first.”