I think we can learn a lot about a person in the very moment that language fails them. In the very moment they they have to be more creative than they would have imagined in order to communicate. It's the very moment that they have to dig deeper than the surface to find words, and at the same time, it's a moment when they want to communicate very badly. They're digging deep and projecting out at the same time.

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.

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.

Many people are afraid to talk about race because it's so emotionally loaded. We don't have the vocabulary to talk about it. Every day, our vocabulary seems more and more inadequate.

I never know when somebody's going to knock on the door of my own unconscious in a way that I wouldn't have anticipated.

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

People in power have to be careful about what comes out of their mouth. They have to find exactly the right word that can't be attacked.