[My father] was not a racist, unlike what the white racist media would say. He had a global outlook just like Barack [Obama] and Michelle [Obama].

I ignore [Barack Obama] like I ignore [Louis ] Farrakhan.

When I heard him speak at the DNC [in 2004] I started supporting him. Then I endorsed him on the anniversary of my father's assassination this year. So I am a diehard [Barack] Obama supporter.

[Barack Obama] and Michelle, in my heart, this is my personal feeling, epitomize what my mother and my father were. They are community organizers on a global level.

My father wasn't a militant racist. He was a human rights activist - he was about human beings, so let's just get away from going way back then.

Not all white people are bad.

We're Democrats [with my father]. So, of course he would [support me]. Absolutely.

I look at Barack [Obama], he's slim like my father, and Michelle's [Obama] full figured like my mother. And I just love it.

Michelle and Barack [Obama] epitomize what my father set the stage for - they epitomize global community organizing. I'm a global child, I was raised a global child, and he's a global child.

We're all African-American, so we're all influenced by each other.

To me, it's normal. We summered in Vermont, and me and my sister Ilyasah went to one of the top ten schools in the country [the Hackley School].

Never forsake your motherland.

I went to my room and packed a change of clothes, got my banjo, and started walking down the road. Soon I found myself on the open highway headed east.

My look was even more solidified when I started singing in Greenwich Village with my sister Lucy. We wore matching dresses as the Simon Sisters.

It would be a dream if 2015 was like 2014 or even better

To write honestly and with all our powers is the least we can do, and the most.

The most important thing an institution does is not to prepare a student for a career but for a life as a citizen.

I cannot change others, but I can influence others... we can't change people, but we can and we do influence people, and we do it every single day.

I'm just beginning to develop callouses on my fingers, because I haven't played a lot.

What was it about high school that made people think with their insecurities instead of their brains?

'What is celebration?' Rather than dancing, rather than laughing, rather than loving, rather than enjoying this silence, the mind asks: 'What is celebration?'