The right wing can use anything, and we have to make it very clear and I make it very clear that my love for the president in terms of protecting him and respecting him but also correcting, now all three of those are crucial, and if I can do all three, then the right wing can use it whatever they want, and I'm just clear where I stand, over against them but also critical when the president leans toward the strong, rather than the weak.

I would want to conceive of philosophy as grounded in the very long humanist tradition that is the best of the West, which is open to the East and North and South.

The important thing for me as an educator is how to - how do we unsettle the minds and touch the souls of significant numbers of young people who don't read texts or don't read my texts.

I want to be a jazzman until the day I die. To help keep that motion, momentum and movement going, for myself, for my students, for the people who hear me. Oh sure, some days you look around at this country and look at the evidence and think, Oh Lord, don't look good. But you keep moving. You gotta keep moving.

There are various forms of weaponry, intellectual weaponry, spiritual weaponry, political weaponry, economic weaponry. Because we are on the battlefield, and there are bullets flying, some symbolic, some literal and the life of the mind is a crucial place where the battle goes on.

Martin Luther King wanted to be morally consistent and speak out against various things that were wrong, not just racism.

A fully functional multiracial society cannot be achieved without a sense of history and open, honest dialogue.