“That’s in the nature of social change. So you can analyze what didn’t work, but it’s very hard to predict what will work.”

So we were ecstatic and we swirled around spontaneously, the campus in Ann Harbor and about 4,000 of us landed on the steps of the president of the University of Michigan’s home.

One of the things that’s complicated about writing anything is that it’s an act of narcissism, and then of course once it sails out into the world, you have to let go of it.

Nixon probably was a nice guy.

[Barack] Obama doesn’t disappoint me, because all during the campaign he said, I’m a pragmatic, middle-of-the-road, compromising politician.

I lasted a year and a half at Michigan before I dropped out and joined the merchant marines and I was a merchant marine for my sophomore year then I came back to Michigan.

I spoke at the University of Georgia, and a whole contingent of Tea Party people in Hell’s Angels regalia came in and sat in the front and scowled at me while I gave my talk.

The day before every revolution that’s ever happened, that revolution was impossible. The day before Rosa Parks, that was impossible. The day after, it was inevitable.

I was a child of privilege and I woke up to a world on fire.

I’m not disappointed in [Barack] Obama. He said who he is; he’s doing what he said he would do.

Politicians are conservative by nature.

We’re actually saying, here’s a principle that I’d like to arc toward. That’s a very different role in life. I didn’t expect [Barack] Obama to go to the root of things. I didn’t expect him to have a principled position on anything. I mean, just pay some moderate attention to the guy.

[Martin Luther King] King was a socialist and King was an activist who was really a radical by the end.

Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that’s where it’s really at.

The US is indeed a terrorist nation. …It’s also the greatest purveyor of violence on earth over the past half century, and the foremost threat to world peace today.

The antiwar movement in all its commitment, all its sacrifice and determination, could not stop the violence unleashed against Vietnam. And therein lies cause for real regret.

I’m wary of government. Part of [the Tea Party] impulse is to dislike and be worried about the rich. I’m that way too. So I don’t find them to be as atrocious as most people do, as your liberals do. I’m not a liberal.

I want to graduate high school, so it’s very important to me, and I’ll be focusing hard on that as well.

Life is a hard battle anyway. If we laugh and sing a little as we fight the good fight of freedom, it makes it all go easier. I will not allow my life’s light to be determined by the darkness around me.

Keep moving. It’s hard for old age to hit a moving target.

It’s hard to listen to your soul if you’re only listening to your fears.

The less I pray, the harder it gets; the more I pray, the better it goes.

I’m very inspired by him-it was my father who taught us that an immigrant must work twice as hard as anybody else, that he must never give up.

It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.

I work so hard to make that sure I’m successful. If you’re positive and really excited and enthusiastic about what you’re doing, it’s going to happen, and it’s going to happen big time.