I feel sorry for people who only know comic books through movies. I really do.

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.

During my time in high altitude astronomy, I routinely witnessed workers breathing medical oxygen, industrial carbon dioxide, nitrogen and helium gas as part of their daily work routine.

Light up the darkness

An old man concludeth from his knowing mankind that they know him too, and that maketh him very wary.

And there must be simple substances, because there are compounds; for the compound is nothing but a collection or aggregatum of simples.

The sense of smell explores; deleterious substances almost always have an unpleasant smell.

People aren't interested in seeing themselves as they really are.

The last thing I'll say for the people that don't believe in cycling, the cynics and the sceptics, I'm sorry for you. I'm sorry you can't dream big and I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles.

I wake up early in the morning and walk for an hour. If I have something to write, I prefer to write in the morning until midday, and in the afternoon, I eat.

Liberty in thought and action is the only condition of life, growth and well-being: Where it does not exist, the man, the race, and the nation must go down.

I went to the dentist. He said "Say Aaah." I said "Why?" He said "My dog's died."