A political ideology is a very handy thing to have. It's a real time-saver, because it tells you what you think about things you know nothing about.

Where is it written that if you don't like religion you are somehow disqualified from being a legitimate American? What was Mark Twain, a Russian?

I'm pretty sure there is no such thing as God.

The filibuster is an affront to commonly understood democratic norms, but then so is the Senate.

A "communist/socialist/progressive" is an oxymoron, like an "atheist/evangelical Christian/Muslim."

Unfair in practice is not the same thing as wrong in principle, but sometimes it has to do.

I don't think that the "freedom movement" is a racist movement as such. But it's a virulent example of identity politics. "Whiteness" is part of the identity, but not the most important part.

I have four strikes against me. I'm black, I'm short, I'm intelligent, and I have a medical condition.

You're in a fight and have to dig down... I find peace in that and enjoy it.

I adore art...when I am alone with my notes, my heart pounds and the tears stream from my eyes, and my emotion and my joys are too much to bear.

Art is an adventure that never seems to end.

Instrumental or mechanical science is the noblest and above all others, the most useful.

In some roles you do that very hard work where, at some point into rehearsals, where all of a sudden it snaps into place. You feel like the soul of this character is now dwelling in you.

No man has a right to lead such a life of contemplation as to forget in his own ease the service due to his neighbor.

Let us ask what is best - not what is customary. Let us love temperance - let us be just - let us refrain from bloodshed.

It is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it – a costly myth