Without doubt, President [Barack] Obama is a great historical figure.

In America there is institutional racism that we all inherit and participate in, like breathing the air in this room - and we have to become sensitive to it.

The story of the African-American people is the story of the settlement and growth of America itself, a universal tale that all people should experience.

The first step toward tolerance is respect and the first step toward respect is knowledge.

The thing about black history is that the truth is so much more complex than anything you could make up.

In Ethiopia, the black people became Christians 1700 years ago, hundreds of years before Northern Europe turned to Christianity... And here, most of the saints are black.

We can revolutionize the attitude of inner city brown and black kids to learning. We need a civil rights movement within the African-American community.

I want to be a figure for prison reform. I think that the criminal justice system is rotten.

Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.

Wherever you go in the history of America, there have been Black people making contributions, but their contributions have been obscured, lost, buried.

Well, certainly one of the ironies of the success of affirmative action is that the middle class within the black community no longer lives within 'black community' by and large.

I am a great warrior.

The word and the image mutually excluded each other. Joseph was a literary man to his very marrow

If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life - and only then will I be free to become myself.

And in real life endings aren't always neat, whether they're happy endings, or whether they're sad endings.

Everyone remembers Stuart Pearce as a determined, aggressive player, who played with great heart and enthusiasm that gave him a great career in the game.

Very often on films, even without a producer credit, I'll be involved, very early on. I want to be there as the thing is taking shape.

Count Olaf certainly does sound evil. Imagine forcing children to stand near a stove!

We weren't meant to be somebody--we were meant to know Somebody

Creativity makes life useful to us. It also makes us useful to life.

He who has two languages has two souls.