Sometimes when I listen to fellow progressives, I wonder if the only lesson we took away from the '04 elections is that politics is a word game.

True patriots measure themselves not by personal wealth or power but by the degree to which they contribute to the community.

The next time someone uses denial of citizenship as a weapon or brandishes the special status conferred upon him by the accident of birth, ask him this: What have you done lately to earn it?

Today's multiracial Americans are at greater liberty to choose how they'd like to be seen, and under less pressure to pass for white.

We're all better off...when we're all better off.

The Boomers have modeled a set of bad habits, and one grand gesture is not going to unwind all those bad habits.

Identity in America is complicated but it's also simple: it's about whom you identify with and who identifies with you.

As it stands now, those of us who are lucky enough to be citizens by birth don't have to do much. Very little is asked of us.

Throughout this country's history there have of course been systematic efforts to create an official underclass.

To be sure, the United States has profound problems, not least our faltering educational and physical infrastructure.

Society becomes how you behave.

He who writes is the martyr, seen through the eyes of the unassuming doll.

The domestic cat is a bit of a contradiction. It freely accepts human friendship while never allowing even the most contented life to dim its sense of who it is and what it is capable of.

Nothing lasts forever but the certainty of change

In America, with education and hard work, it really does not matter where you came from; it matters only where you are going.

If you think back , the Academy was doing a better job. Think about how many more African Americans were nominated.We need to get better at this. We used to be better at it.

Intuition is what you know before you think.

As an actor, you can't be off the market for too long.

You start developing a championship attitude by, first of all, telling kids that they are really good and that they have the potential to become better.

The single most powerful tool for winning a negotiation is the ability to get up and walk away from the table without a deal

As long as your robot isn't programmed by like Dr. Evil, I think you're going to be fine.