Why are the mainstream buzz things rarely contemporary? It doesn't happen very often. It's hard to feel culpable or implicated or even apathetic.

All this angst, all this stuff we all feel, is just tied to making art. It's so ancient.

I don't write to put it in a drawer, I hope that people see it.

People are very comfortable when race relations get looked at retrospectively. Slavery, the civil rights movement, etc.

I'm not searching for the truth.That's too much pressure .

I think there's nothing new going on. Except that, you're even more public than you've ever been.There's some good and some bad to that.

If New York is the City That Never Sleeps, then Los Angeles is the City That's Always Passed Out on the Couch.

It's so hard to say what you really mean. For any number of reasons: to protect yourself, or if you just can't find the words.

Don't write about trying to change the world, just write about a changed world or a world that's not changing. Let that do the work.

In The Sellout I tried to capture how we can talk and see race, how we see urbanity, and how we see our history.

I think everybody focuses on race, but it's about a ton of things, and I just see these things as all interrelated and all interwoven in a weird way.

Let the devil bar my way, I will come back to ye.

Deep down in everyone was sorrow and certainty.

Democracy, like any non-coercive relationship, rests on a shared understanding of limits.

Nothing is more frightening than a monster that cares about his health, cause you know he'll be around for a while.

I paint from the top down. From the sky, then the mountains, then the hills, then the houses, then the cattle, and then the people.

Before I met Jesus I wanted to be a professional pool player.

I can't imagine any one more delightful to sit and talk with about movies on a regular basis.

I was always small. I was a leadoff hitter growing up, until I was 13 or 14 years old and had a little growth spurt and started hitting home runs.

What you do for a living is not be creative, what you do for a living is ship.