Happy Birthday Avery Brooks!

Until the world in some way changes, then my responsibility is to share what I know and more importantly to behave like I know about the extraordinary work and effort and blood shed for me to be able to sit here.

Don't let form become more important than the substance of your heart and mind. Don't let commerce determine what you do exclusively.

It's the year 2000. But where are the flying cars? I was promised flying cars! I don't see any flying cars! Why? Why? Why?

Knowledge is going to make you stronger. Knowledge is going to let you control your life. Knowledge is going to give you the wisdom to teach their children. Knowledge is the thing that makes you smile in the face of disaster.

The show ran for seven years. It was a long, long road. I did have some reservations initially when I read the script [for the series finale "What You Leave Behind"], because I thought they were going to really kill Sisko. I took that very literally, and asked the producers, "Why are you killing Sisko?" The producers told me, "Look we thought you'd be thrilled because we had made him a God!" The difference, of course, is you have Sisko with another child on the way. You still have Sisko with a young man [Jake Sisko] trying to find his way, and you make him a God! That wasn't fair.

People do not connect with what happened last week, let alone what happened 20 years ago.

Hold on to your dream. Don't let the people shake you from your dream. Don't let form become more important than the substance of your heart and mind. Don't let commerce determine what you do exclusively.

If I were a carpenter, I'd find a way to empower using that skill. I'm using as much as God has given - my mind, my voice, my heart, my art forms. This is the highest form of expression on the planet from God, to me, to you.

At least the box is full of something useful. 

One of the reasons that I accepted, once asked to do Star Trek, was to give a single child a chance to see the long thought, to see themselves some 400 years hence. It occurred to me that we must ensure that we keep in front of children the ever-changing horizon. To let the children know that there is possibility, to let the children know that someone is not going to take away or destroy this world before they have a chance. We have to keep that in front of them.

What I am is a thinking, feeling human being compelled by history.