“This is the basis, and I am not being tried for whether I am a Communist, I am being tried for fighting for the right of my people, who are still second-class citizens in this United States of America”

“Through the years I have received my share of recognition for efforts in the fields of sports, the arts, the struggle for full citizenship for the Negro people, labor's rights and the fight for peace.”

“Could I say that the reason that I am here today, you know, from the mouth of the State Department itself, is: I should not be allowed to travel because I have struggled for years for the independe...”

“Four hundred million in India, and millions everywhere, have told you, precisely, that the colored people are not going to die for anybody: they are going to die for their independence.”

“As an artist I come to sing, but as a citizen, I will always speak for peace, and no one can silence me in this.”

“In fact, because of this deep desire for peace, the ruling class leaders of this land, from 1945 on, stepped up the hysteria and propaganda to drive into American minds the false notion that danger...”

“Marriage must fight constantly against a monster which devours everything: routine.”

“I know that the whole pointthe only pointis tofind the things that matter, and hold on to them, and fight for them, and refuse tolet them go.”

“No one lived forever. But you fought for every minute you could get. Bought a little more with a lot of hard work.”

“My dad always told me to stand up to bullies, and Bill O'Reilly is kind of a bully, and he's the kind of kid who hits other kids on the playground. And when you hit him, he runs to the teacher and ...”

“For me, I've always found people who stand up and spritz themselves all over their clothes very odd. I'm a big bath addict, and I get up in the morning, and I have a big bath. But when I get out, a...”

“In many ways, history is marked as 'before' and 'after' Rosa Parks. She sat down in order that we all might stand up, and the walls of segregation came down.”

“I shiver, thinking how easy it is to be totally wrong about people-to see one tiny part of them and confuse it for the whole, to see the cause and think it's the effect or vice versa”

“At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear.”

“I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.”