To prevent enabling oppression, we demand that black people be twice as good. To prevent verifying stereotypes, we pledge to never eat a slice a watermelon in front of white people.

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.

Don't be afraid of failure. This is the way to succeed.

Understanding one's purpose is the key to success.

If we are to be truly free, that freedom will come through cooperation and tolerance with one another.

We are forever asking Nature whether it has stopped beating its wife.

The question of questions for the politicians should ever be-What type of social structure am I tending to produce? But this is a question he never entertains.

I love my fans unconditionally. They have been supportive of me through everything, and I would not be here, giving this interview to you, without them.

My life is really so much based in England.

Wasn't it thrilling when the U.S. Women's team took home the gold in gymnastics? A group of American teenagers getting a higher score than Chinese kids? That never happens.

I didn't want to whisper and giggle about [puberty] anymore. I felt incredibly self-conscious. I felt like I was losing myself, and I was losing who I was. And that really scared me.

Everyone's a star and deserves the right to twinkle.