I'm passionate about what I do. I'd be naive to be passive.

A new broom can sweep the floor, but an old broom knows where the dirt is.

People don't want to hear the truth, they never do. They wanna live in some kind of fantasy. And then when they get caught up in it, they start being in denial because they don't want to be wrong.

I have nothing to do with racism in America; it was here when I got here.

We have a lot of black Anglo-Saxons. Their skin is black, but their brain is white. When I get real mad at them, I call them graham crackers.

If your hair is relaxed, white people are relaxed. If your hair is nappy, they're not happy.

People in America worship money, and a white man's face on a green piece of paper does not make me wealthy. My health makes me wealthy. I used to work at a hospital, so I know the real deal.

White people are very good at acting like they're not racist. They deserve an Academy Award for that.

Listen, we've got one little ol' black president, and white folks are upset, but they've had 43.

Handshaking means, 'I don't have a weapon.'

If you have money and you have fame, but you don't have any confidence in your blackness, then it's all for nothing.

Even this is paradoxical because even though the ego does all the spiritual practice in the beginning, it’s the Truth that has orchestrated it all.

Just think how happy you'd be if you lost everything you have right now & then got it back.

The goal when you get into a relationship is not to be out of the relationship. It's to try to stay in the relationship. But if it doesn't work, you can't force those things.

I definitely have my opinions that I'm very vocal about and I'm not afraid to put them out there.

My wife comes from a foodie family so I've been indoctrinated into that. I had sweetbreads the other night, and I have to say, not my favorite thing in the world You're eating a gland.

Our hopes, often though they deceive us, lead us pleasantly along the path of life.

When the elephant decides to walk through the village, all the dogs come out and bark.

I think thats the most important job of a novelist - to bring authority to their writing.

Every good cause is worth some inefficiency.

I realize that was becoming a contradiction in terms, especially after my friend Alison Krauss was shot and killed in Kent State in 1970 on campus by the National Guard.