It takes tremendous discipline, takes tremendous courage, to think for yourself, to examine yourself.

The wonderful thing about the black church for me is that it forces you to come to terms with the centrality of love in the world.

Homophobia is very, very difficult to root out, to extricate. That's why we have to bear witness. That's why we have to be so public about it, and that's why we can't just play footsie with it.

There's a certain pleasure of the life of the mind that cannot be denied. There's a certain pleasure about being around people who enact a playfulness when it comes to the world of ideas.

I had a passion and love of learning and wisdom that was inseparable from a love of music and the arts. I've never viewed them in any way as being separable.

There ought to be a robust, uninhibited conversation in black America with different black ideological perspectives.

A rich life consists fundamentally of serving others, trying to leave the world a little better than you found it.