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.

I love studying how people are. Not just what they're saying, but how they are, what they're doing.

Listening is not just hearing what someone tells you word for word. You have to listen with a heart. I don't want that to sound touchy-feely; it is not. It is very hard work.

We spend so much time bantering about the words when the real open conversations might very well be our actions. I worry about our rhetoric.

Suddenly in high school, I'm in a predominantly Jewish atmosphere. Jewish people were my gate to white America.

Then everyone leaves, and you are left, each night, to your own devices with a crowd of interesting people - most of whom you don't know - sitting in the dark.

If you say a word often enough it becomes you.