After having supplied myself with provisions from Mr. Travis's, I scratched a hole under a pile of fence rails in a field, where I concealed myself for six weeks, never leaving my hiding place but for a few minutes in the dead of night to get water, which was very near.

To a mind like mine, restless, inquisitive, and observant of everything that was passing, it is easy to suppose that religion was the subject to which it would be directed; and, although this subject principally occupied my thoughts, there was nothing that I saw or heard of to which my attention was not directed.

I was not addicted to stealing in my youth, nor have ever been; yet such was the confidence of the Negroes in the neighborhood, even at this early period of my life, in my superior judgment, that they would often carry me with them when they were going on any roguery, to plan for them.

Since the commencement of 1830, I had been living with Mr. Joseph Travis, who was to me a kind master and placed the greatest confidence in me; in fact, I had no cause to complain of his treatment of me.

Panic is a sudden desertion of us, and a going over to the enemy of our imagination.

I think that's one of the greatest gifts you get if you're successful at something like music or film or photography - any of the arts - you can sit there and think. It's so much fun to sit there and think and wonder about the world and the universe.

I've taken on impossible fights before and won and I've done it not by taking on the tactics and techniques of demagogues and bullies but by calling people to our higher angels, calling to the moral imagination of communities about what we can be and what we can achieve together.

A culture that only recognizes and rewards the same set of attributes results in less collaboration, creativity, and innovation. If we only reward the loudest voices or the sharpest elbows, then we're missing out on the full range of talent.