I am suspicious - first of all, in myself - of adopted mysticisms of glib spirituality, above all of white people's tendency to ... vampirize American Indian, or African, or Asian, or other 'exotic' ways of understanding.
But at any rate, the point is that God is what nobody admits to being, and everybody really is. If you awaken from this illusion, and you understand that black implies white, self implies other, life implies death - or shall I say, death implies life - you can conceive yourself.
There's some bittersweet feelings about leaving the people here [in the White House]. 'Cause even though all the team you assemble, you know, you're going to stay in touch with 'em, it's not the same, you know? The band kind of breaks up.
So now I'm going to forget the 400 years of lynching and killing raping and depriving my people feeding of justice and equality and the lowest of low last respect and I'm going to look at two or three white people who are trying to do right and don't see the other million who are trying to kill me? I'm not that big of a fool.
We shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it.
Abraham Lincoln, White House speech 11 April 1865.
Or arm th' obdured breast
With stubborn patience as with triple steel.
Our kids grew up here [in the White House]. Some of our best friends have been made here in this place. There have been moments that were highlights for us - that - you know, are going to be hard to duplicate.
When I put my pen to a blank sheet, black isn’t added but rather the white sheet is deprived of light. [] Thus I also grasped that the empty spaces are the most important aspect of a typeface.