It's true that you might be socially isolated because you're reading in the library, at home and so on, but you're intensely alive. In fact you're much more alive than these folk walking the streets of New York in crowds, with no intellectual interrogation and questioning going at all.

Reelection ought not to be the primary preoccupation of any politician. It ought to be standing up for truth and justice.

And every historic effort to forge a democratic project has been undermined by two fundamental realities: poverty and paranoia. The persistence of poverty generates levels of despair that deepen social conflict the escalation of paranoia produces levels of distrust that reinforce cultural division. Rae is the most explosive issue in American life precisely because it forces us to confront the tragic facts of poverty and paranoia despair, and distrust. In short, a candid examination of race matters takes us to the core of the crisis of American democracy (p. 107).

The capacity to produce social chaos is the last resort of desperate people.

For me, musicians are poets. Beethoven describes himself as a poet of tones, just like Coltrane's a poet of tempo.

And when I talk about love, I'm talking about something that's great, though, brother. I'm talking about something that will sustain you.

I couldn't live without the genius of Stephen Sondheim, be it not just West Side Story,but Follies,Company,Sweeney Todd,Passion.You can go on and on.