It appears that the present-day form of African American English is not the inheritance of the period of slavery, but the creation of the second half of the 20th century.

I am now completing research supported by NSF and NEH that is mapping changes in the English language through all of North America, for both mainstream and minority communities.

I have resisted the term sociolinguistics for many years, since it implies that there can be a successful linguistic theory or practice which is not social.

We focus upon pairs of words very often which are the same in some areas and different in other areas.

However, research in the years that followed found that in many of its important features, African American Vernacular English was becoming not less, but more different from other dialects.

Well, American dialects have been studied for a hundred years or so.

But unlike European countries, America has never finished a map of the United States, only the eastern United States is covered and a few spots here and there.

I just want to live in a way that either wakes people up or shakes people up. Whether I have opened a wound or opened a heart, I have touched a life and helped bring a change.

Everyone is the right person for the right person.

When somebody says I wouldn't change a thing they're thinking of something they would change.

I'm still with that feeling that I am afraid of doing the wrong thing, because somebody is going to punish me.

There is no odor so bad as that which arises from goodness tainted.

Foreign meddling elections is bad whether it's done by the Russians here or by us or anyplace else.

When most of us talk to our dogs, we tend to forget that they're not people.

That audience embrace has unbelievable power.

As a slave [to fashion], I can be very dramatic and very demanding of myself and of the people I work with.

Don't invite me if you don't want me.