The greatest reward of this constant interrogation, confrontation with the brutality of my country, is that it has freed me from hosts and myths.

Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others.

An America that looks away is ignoring not just the sins of the past but the sins of the present and the certain sins of the future.

What sets black people apart is not some deficit in personal responsibility. It's the weight on our shoulders. That is what's actually different. We have the weight and burden of history.

The best part of writing is not the communication of knowledge to other people, but the acquisition and synthesizing of knowledge for oneself.

I did not know then that this is what life is - just when you master the geometry of one world, it slips away, and suddenly again, you're swarmed by strange shapes and impossible angles.

When nonviolence begins halfway through the war with the aggressor calling time out, it exposes itself as a ruse.

Racism is, among other things, the unearned skepticism of one group of humans joined to the unearned sympathy for another.

[E]mpathy - not squishy self-serving conflict avoidance - is the hand-maiden, not the enemy, of reason and intellectual inquiry.

You can live in the world of myth and be taken seriously.

If George Washington crossing the Delaware matters, so must his ruthless pursuit of the runagate Oney Judge.

Read deeply. Stay open. Continue to wonder.

We all deserve the best possible future.

It was a real party of swells.

I always had a knack for improvisation. I can write down the notes I play, but never really had a proper academic musical background. I suppose I'm blessed and cursed by the fact I have that freedom.

My paintings should become objects into which one could float, as in water, so that one's mind is hung... suspended, and the emanation of the painting would penetrate into people's consciousness.

I'm not particularly precious about the theatrical experience any more.

I always imagined that I would learn something each time that I would take to a new project, then I realized that each new project poses a completely different challenge.

There is no safer place for your hopes and dreams than in the loving hands of your faithful Father.

Aggression is the most common behavior used by many organizations, a nearly invisible medium that influences all decisions and actions.

I'd like to be remembered as a man who went to Heaven and not another place.