I was trying to write a straightforward book of sociological analysis, or at least cultural criticism, and I failed.

Justice is what love sounds like when it speaks in public.

I don't worship the Bible, I worship the God who gave the Bible.

The writer's gift can make us see ourselves and our morals differently than our reality suggests.

He was not hip-hop's most gifted emcee. Still, Shakur may be the most influential and compelling rapper of them all, he was more than the sum of his artistic parts.

My ambition didn't grow out of nowhere. It was planted in me by a community that nurtured me.

Donald Trump amplifies the worst instincts. And his nationalism is really a white racist supremacist nationalism.

All of us should be much more humble and contrite when we point the finger at somebody else, because four more fingers are pointing back at us.

We can't exempt ourselves from the same moral calculus that we are willing to apply to others.

The language of faith is crucial because it affords human beings the privilege of intimacy with the ultimate.

I was very struck when Min. Farrakhan said if Jesus and Muhammad were here today, they'd be embracing each other. That's a tremendous message that needs to be heard more broadly.

Some days there won't be a song in your heart. Sing anyway.

today, live your life to the fullest because tomorrow is a mystery, don't enter it with regrets

Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.

No man can claim to be free in real terms unless he is fully in control of his own destiny!

Imagine that each time you inhale, that the universe is breathing into you, and as you exhale it is breathing out of you.

The clamours of spring are the same old delicate noises, The earth renews its magical youth at a breath.

I am a player in life, not an observer. I look at herpes the way you look at a scraped knee.

Making a pretty picture, an image, is a completely different thing from acting to camera.

Very often the effort men put into activities that seem completely useless turns out to be extremely important in ways no one could foresee. Play has always been the mainspring of culture.

I photograph like a documentarian, but I print like a painter