“Because the moment you stop doing the very things that got you to the top of the mountain is the very moment you begin the slid down to the valley.”

“When you're writing a book, it's rather like going on a very long walk, across valleys and mountains and things, and you get the first view of what you see and you write it down. Then you walk a bit further, maybe up onto the top of a hill, and you see something else. Then you write that and you go on like that, day after day, getting different views of the same landscape really. The highest mountain on the walk is obviously the end of the book, because it's got to be the best view of all, when everything comes together and you can look back and see that everything you've done all ties up. But it's a very, very long, slow process.”

“When you set your eyes at the mountain top, do not be distracted by the valleys.”

“At this moment, then, the Negroes must begin to do the very thing which they have been taught that they cannot do.”

“You do have great love within you at this very moment.”

“The biggest challenge to excellence is being good at something, because to move from good to great requires your willingness to re-think everything you’ve done that got you to be good. In fact, the very thing that got you where you are might be the very thing that stops you from going where you say you want to be.”