I think there are fundamentalists all over the world. I think all religions have fundamentalists who have different interpretations of scriptures that are very vague.

I finally had to go to the American Civil Liberties Union here in northern California to get my reply published to what I considered to be a hatchet job done by Stanley Crouch.

Ethnic life in the United States has become a sort of contest like baseball in which the blacks are always the Chicago Cubs.

No one says a novel has to be one thing. It can be anything it wants to be, a vaudeville show, the six o’clock news, the mumblings of wild men saddled by demons.

The treatment of African and African American culture in our education was no different from their treatment in Tarzan movies.

Writing poetry is the hard manual labor of the imagination.

I used to be a discipline problem, which caused me embarrassment until I realized that being a discipline problem in a racist society is sometimes an honor.

One of the joys of reading is the ability to plug into the shared wisdom of mankind.

I think I have a pugnacious style. My style is not pretty. I don't use words like "amber" or "opaque."

I consider racism to be a medical problem. Racists need serious medical and psychiatric help, because they are killing themselves and making others suffer along with them.

I'm sure that you could go back and make a graph showing that all the killings of black males increased in times of economic difficulty. As a matter of fact, a black man was lynched last year.

Fear waters the weeds of regret.

We cannot all argue but we can all pray we cannot all be leaders but we can all be pleaders we cannot all be mighty in rhetoric but we can all be prevalent in prayer.

My girlfriend bought me a down jacket, she said it fit my personality.

Inspiration comes in the middle of the night when you should be doing homework.

Celebrate what God has given others. Leverage what God has given you.

I met Scott Stapp when the band was first coming up, great guy. I haven't seen him for years, but a great guy.

For what it's worth, it's never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you're proud of and if you find that you're not, I hope you have the strength to start over.

Revolutions are like the most noxious dungheaps, which bring into life the noblest vegetables.

I had studied theater for three years in London when someone suggested me for the role.

Love begins with a smile, grows with a kiss, and ends with a teardrop.