I don't talk a lot when I interview. My job is to get out of the way.

You know if we were to look back and how we were in 1955 living in Jim Crow, living in segregation, living in segregated schools, it's hard to believe that it was America, but it really was.

You know, real artists, we expose our flaws. We long for intimacy.

I mean, I think a healthy country is a country where people are healthy physically, and a smart country is a country where people are educated.

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.

Those in the margins are always trying to get to the center, and those at the center, frequently in the name of tradition, are trying to keep the margins at a distance.

Identity is an assemblage of constellations.