Barack Obama’s victories in 2008 and 2012 were dismissed by some of his critics as merely symbolic for African Americans. But there is nothing “mere” about symbols.

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.

There lives a man, who is too small for his own brain." ‪#‎iampm‬

Sadness was so claustrophobic.

To engage with criticism, is on some level, a validation of that which otherwise would go unnoticed.

yoga is the science of reality

It lies in human nature that where you experience your first laughs, you also remember the age kindly.

My mom used to tell me that the most valuable thing she owned was her library card. We were poor, but that's not what she was talking about. My mom knew that education opened doors and opened minds.

If you work hard, you have a better chance of producing something that you're proud of. If you don't, you won't. It's really simple.

A talkative person runs himself upon great inconvenience by blabbing out his own and others' secrets.

As you get older, life gets harder if you're not applying spiritual truths.

No!" Amy said. "Dan, you're lucky it was only concussive. You could've wiped out the whole Holt family." "And that would've been bad because...?