One must learn how to be black in America.

In America there is institutional racism that we all inherit and participate in, like breathing the air in this room - and we have to become sensitive to it.

The story of the African-American people is the story of the settlement and growth of America itself, a universal tale that all people should experience.

The first step toward tolerance is respect and the first step toward respect is knowledge.

The thing about black history is that the truth is so much more complex than anything you could make up.

In Ethiopia, the black people became Christians 1700 years ago, hundreds of years before Northern Europe turned to Christianity... And here, most of the saints are black.

We can revolutionize the attitude of inner city brown and black kids to learning. We need a civil rights movement within the African-American community.

I want to be a figure for prison reform. I think that the criminal justice system is rotten.

Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.

Wherever you go in the history of America, there have been Black people making contributions, but their contributions have been obscured, lost, buried.

Well, certainly one of the ironies of the success of affirmative action is that the middle class within the black community no longer lives within 'black community' by and large.

It takes more than just awareness for us to change. It takes courage and humility and the willingness to occasionally feel like fools and laugh at ourselves.

Jenni Fagan is the real thing, and The Panopticon is a real treat: maturely alive to the pains of maturing, and cleverly amused as well as appalled by what it finds in the world.

A master of tone and texture and an authority on the bizarre, Karen Russell writes with great flair and fearlessness.

I'm sure some cynical people would point to that as the main reason for doing it for a lot of people.

I think the question of abortion is one that should be left for the states to decide.

Strong and convincing art has never arisen from theories.

I'm not only a romanticist but a romantic myself. I take it for granted the originality matters.

A good school provides a rounded education for the whole person. And a good Catholic school, over and above this, should help all its students to become saints.

Accept yourself as you are. And that is the most difficult thing in the world, because it goes against your training, education, your culture.

There's a thousand reasons why I shouldn't drink... but I can't think of one right now.