In particular in how [Barack Obama] has directed what you could describe as patronizing remarks to African-American communities.

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.

No matter how different you are, your idea is, your art, your writing, your product, your concept, show it to the world. Just do it. Show who you are to the world. This is what you are here to do.

I've got two girls. I like to play golf. Apart from that there's not a lot goes on in my life. So I am boring, aren't I?

There is far more danger of harm than there is hope of good in any radical changes.

Some people watching CNN were so shocked they started rioting. No, I'm kidding. No one watches CNN.

My nickname for my mom was 'The Compass.'

It is more worthy in the eyes of God . . . if a writer makes three pages sharp and funny about the lives of geese than to make three hundred fat and flabby about God or the American people.

Strum your guitar sing it kid Just write about your feelings not the things you never did Inexperience, it once had cursed me But your youth is no handicap it's what makes you thirsty

The most mentally deranged people are certainly those who see in others indications of insanity they do not notice in themselves.

Politics doesn't work. Look at the parts of America where government has had the most power, where government has spent the most money. Look at the housing projects we've got the poor people in.

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained, I stand and look at them long and long.