“Imagination allows us to escape the predictable. It enables us to reply to the common wisdom that we cannot soar by saying, ‘Just watch!’”

How should we Democrats select the next presidential nominee? Smoke filled rooms? Brokered convention? National primary? Personally, I prefer jump shots from the top of the key.

The point of the game is not how well the individual does, but whether the team wins. That’s the beautiful heart of the game, the blending of personalities, the mutual sacrifices for the group success.

When we engage people positively, we create a receptive platform for the ideas and information we wish to communicate.

Classic Christmas cookies are really time-consuming. Instead, make a bar you can bake in a pan and just cut up, like a brownie or a blondie or a shortbread, which still has that Christmas vibe.

Leadership is not something that is done to people, like fixing your teeth. Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better.

Give to another human being without the expectation of a return.

Trying to take money out of politics is like trying to take jumping out of basketball.

I might lose because I wasn’t tall enough; I might lose because I wasn’t fast enough. But I wasn’t going to lose because I wasn’t ready.

A lot of people want to change the world, but only a few people want to change themselves. When it comes to the issue of race in America, we have to do both.

When you’re not practicing, someone somewhere is. And when the two of you meet, assuming roughly equal ability, the other person will win.

Tax (reform) is ultimately a decision about values.

Sports is a metaphor for overcoming obstacles and achieving against great odds. Athletes, in times of difficulty, can be important role models.

Every time I have some moment on a seashore, or in the mountains, or sometimes in a quiet forest, I think this is why the environment has to be preserved.

Basketball can serve as a kind of metaphor for ultimate cooperation. It is a sport where success, as symbolized by the championship, requires that the dictates of community prevail over selfish impulses.

Working with the UN’s diplomacy and development arms, we can prevent minor differences from escalating into wars.

When you make speeches you elicit expectations against which you will be held accountable.

It hinders the creative work of the mind if the intellect examines too closely the ideas as they pour in.

In the case of a creative mind, it seems to me, the intellect has withdrawn its watchers from the gates, and the ideas rush in pell-mell and only then does it review and inspect the multitudes.

At the very beginning of my creative life I loved humanity. I wanted to do something good for mankind. Soon I understood that it isn’t possible to save mankind.

Artists die twice. First creatively. Then physically. The second one is the easiest.

If you are on to something creative, school can also inhibit you. The wrong teacher, man, can really mess you up.

In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.

You’ve only got 12 notes and however you mix them up is your thing.

Acting runs through my blood. There is some sort of creative desire to express myself and I would need that outlet. Otherwise I would be a nightmare to live with.