I think I'm an actor because I have very strong imagination and empathy. I never studied acting, but those two qualities are exactly the qualities that make for an activist.

When you start to develop your powers of empathy and imagination, the whole world opens up to you.

I'm tired of being labelled anti-American because I ask questions.

I look forward to being older, when what you look like becomes less and less an issue and what you are is the point.

Children reinvent your world for you.

Happiness is the true beauty weapon.

I believe in using words, not fists.

It's important to just keep wanting whatever it is you want and fight for it, desperately.

We stand a chance of getting a president who has probably killed more people before he gets into office than any president in the history of the United States.

It will be great when it's not such a big deal when a woman gets a good job.

Making love is like hitting a baseball. You just gotta relax and concentrate.

Vessels large may venture more, But little boats should keep near shore.

He (Jesus) will reign over you, either by your consent, or without it.

The minute you get too big to mop a floor or wipe a counter, that's the exact minute you have life f**ked up.

Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error, and is personal.

The imagination demands that life be told slant because of its need of distance.

Long Division has a lot of Afrosurrealist impulses. I think the book was more Afrofuturist when it was like 700 pages.

A name is a solemn thing.

The idea of making [conceptual] art was not a good way to approach things... Instead I saw myself as trying to make something that my relatives could understand.

The near absence of bargains works as a reverse indicator for us. When we find there is little worth buying, there is probably much worth selling.

All the great organizations in the world, all have a sense of why that organization does what it does.