The progressive approach to policy which directly addresses the effects of white supremacy is simple - talk about class and hope no one notices.

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.

Marriage has no guarantees. If that's what you're looking for go live with a car battery.

Every parent is at some time the father of the unreturned prodigal, with nothing to do but keep his house open to hope.

How much more sensuality invites to art than does sentimentality.

The more knowledge, the more responsibility. The more love, the more ability.

Beauty is like life itself: a dawn mist the sun burns off. It gives no peace, no rest.

No man will take counsel, but every man will take money. Therefore, money is better than counsel.

I have no agenda except to be funny. Neither I nor the writers profess to offer any worldly wisdom.

I like to edit; I like to work with other people, and that's something stand-up doesn't really have.

I got a girl named Bony Maronie, she's as skinny as a stick of macaroni.

Solitude is the salt of personhood. It brings out the authentic flavor of every experience.