Rap actually comes out of punk rock, not black music.

You can meet a young person who goes to school and is really enthusiastic, but if a sufficiently strong personality convinces them that this is a waste of time, that person might flunk out.

If there's an intellectual highway, there's also an intellectual subway.

You'd never know that listening to people in the UN but tribalism is the father of racism.

As you know from reading many of these Negro writers, we don't deal too much with the discussion of democracy and what it means and how improvisation fits in all that.

When a violent minority that crosses color lines comes to believe that killing those you know or do not know is a reasonable solution to problems, we are in need of another vision.

Your ethnic or sexual identity, what region of the country you're from, what your class is - those aspects of your identity are not the same as your aesthetic identity.

Our society has gotten to the point where we might soon become less and less shocked by any kind of violence.

When you're artistic director of a program, you present the music you want to present.

All of us are made up of the stories that we listen to, the ones we disagree with and the ones that we agree with.

When people conclude that all is futile, then the absurd becomes the norm.

The Universe doesn't like secrets. It conspires to reveal the truth, to lead you to it.

I like the bumper sticker that reads, “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven.” But that does not give us license to live below God’s standard.

It makes no sense to try to extend a friendship that was only meant to be a season into a lifetime.

I once asked him why he smoked the world's most expensive cigarette, and he told me it was because he was a man of wealth and taste, at least according to Mick Jagger.

Hush little baby, Dont you cry, Dont cut your arms, Dont say goodbye. Put down that razor, Put down that light, It maybe hard but, You'll win this fight.

And if I'm being honest, I don't think I have an ex-boyfriend who would have something mean to say about me.

High School is like a spork: it's a crappy spoon and a crappy fork, so in the end it's just plain useless.

For my own part, I believe that there is social and psychological justification for significant inequalities of incomes and wealth.

The biggest problem with working at a treadmill desk: the compulsion to announce constantly that you are working at a treadmill desk.

The kingdom of heaven is within us. The Jewish idea was a kingdom of heaven upon this earth. That was not the idea of Jesus.