What it is is that Barack Obama was raised by a white mother and two white grandparents who, A, told him he was black and that there was nothing wrong with being black.

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're the ones who will fill in the blank places. Maybe we can make it different.

Those acidic insults being poured down on you are found in satan's gallons! Watch those who tackle you for you to fall down

Empty space is a boiling, bubbling brew of virtual particles that pop in and out of existence in a time scale so short that you can't even measure them.

I do have insecurities. I don't know if you can tell. I'm not brimming with confidence.

I'm independent. If a guy is too clingy or needy, I actually get afraid of hurting him - and I can't deal with that.

Ask not first what the system does; ask what it does it to!

One has a stronger hand when there's more people playing your same cards.

But as well may you, when urging a man up-hill with a heavy load upon his back, and with your lash also upon his back, tell him, that be has nothing to do either with the load or the lash.

A piece of paper or a photograph is as much an object, or as 'material' as a ton of lead.

Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us?