"We expect a great man to be..." - Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson

“There are always two parties;the establishment and the movement.”

“I think we must get rid of slavery, or we must get rid of freedom.”

“The moral equalizes all; enriches, empowers all. It is the coin which buys all, and which all find in their pocket. Under the whipof the driver, the slave shall feel his equality with saints and heroes.”

“Integration is the method toward obtaining that goal. And what he Negro leader has done is gotten himself wrapped up in the method and has forgotten what the goal is.”

“I expect to maintain this contest until successful, or till I die, or am conquered, or my term expires, or Congress or the country forsakes me.”

“I can say with confidence that I never bought into the hype, and I made sure that the people around me didn't buy into the hype, and I did not surround myself with people who fed me the hype. And I'm glad of that as well.”

“When I closed THE GRAPES OF WRATH, I was a different man. It enriched my powers of thinking and discipline, and my relationships. I left prison more informed than when I went in. And the more informed you are, the less arrogant and aggressive you are.”

“All the people who fought for freedom were my heroes. I mean, that was the sort of story I liked reading... freedom struggles and so on.”

“One night a friend lent me a book of short stories by Franz Kafka. I went back to the pension where I was staying and began to read The Metamorphosis. The first line almost knocked me off the bed. I was so surprised. The first line reads, “As Gregor Samsa awoke that morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. . . .” When I read the line I thought to myself that I didn’t know anyone was allowed to write things like that. If I had known, I would have started writing a long time ago. So I immediately started writing short stories.”