The standard progressive approach of the moment is to mix color-conscious moral invective with color-blind public policy.

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.

We are humanity, the banner read. Wrong. We’re pale reflections of it, weak shadows, distant echoes.

There are good reasons to learn how to read. Poetry isn't one of them... Why can't poets just say what they want to say and then shut up?

The sun and its retinue of planets drift as a group through the vast gulfs of space that separate the stars.

The moment good taste knows itself, some of its goodness is lost.

I think it's always difficult to reconcile the needs of art and business.

A cup concealed in the dress is rarely honestly carried.

A thoughtful and well-informed consideration of US government in relation to American society.

Is it fair to have given us the memory of what was and the desire of what could be when we must suffer what is?

Anxiety is not only an inevitable part of the writing process but a necessary part. If you’re not scared, you’re not writing.

The writing of the wise are the only riches our posterity cannot squander.