Some people study a text very deeply. The people are my text. I study their words and what their words sound like, over and over again.

Somehow we can't live outside the politics of race. There's something very deep in all of us, that is taught to us when we are very, very little. Which is the disrespect and fear of the other.

Self-esteem does not come from surrounding yourself with people and things that seem to increase your value. Real self-esteem is an integration of an inner-value with things in the world around you.

People realize that we're very good at sending people to war, but we're not good at taking care of them. And people are coming back from war now; years ago, they would have been killed, now they're wounded; and they're coming back alive and with post-traumatic stress. So, I think Americans are sensible enough to know we've got to figure out a way to take care of them.

People who are sick, or who have been sick, or have come close to death have a lot to say - and they want you to hear it.

When I was a kid, my grandfather said that "if you say a word often enough, it becomes you." Thinking of that later in life gave me this idea that I could try to become America by learning the words of people from many aspects of the country.

Friendship is a wildly underrated medication.