Is the Jewish race thriftier than the Arab race?

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.

Loving someone is giving them the power to break your heart, but trusting them not to.

The world wasn't going to go away. Ever.

Sometimes even in most unfortunate of lives there will occur a moment or two of good.

We cannot live, suffer or die for somebody else, for suffering is too precious to be shared.

If the movie works, nobody notices the mistakes... If the movie doesn't work, the only thing people notice are mistakes.

There was clearly great charm and worth in a sport so quaintly perverse in its basic instructions. Hit down to make the ball rise. Swing easy to make it go far. Finish high to make it go straight.

I'm called away by particular business - but I leave my character behind me

That sorrow which is the harbinger of joy is preferable to the joy which is followed by sorrow.

Some say that life has no form, that it is extremely diffuse. I think I can agree with them. ... A life without conclusions is painful.

The whole year I was in LA I got into telemarketing and learned how to make money. Five years later that skill helped me make my first film.