One is that I am a regular, everyday person, you know what I mean. I feel that wherever I am, I really am.

We're all vanishing organisms and disappearing creatures in space and time - that death sentence in space in time that Kafka talked about with such profundity.

I wished the president [Barack Obama] were more "Martin Luther King-like."

Of course, the aim of a constitutional democracy is to safeguard the rights of the minority and avoid the tyranny of the majority. (p. 102)

I am not optimistic, but I've never been optimistic about humankind or America. The evidence never looks good in terms of forces for good actually becoming prominent.

I don't draw any distinctions between forms of bigotry or forms of ideology that lose sight of the humanity of people. I can't stand white supremacy. I can't stand male supremacy. I can't stand imperial subjugation. I can't stand homophobia.

I would say you have to fight in the life of the mind as well as fight in the streets, as well as fight in the courts, as well as fight in congress and the White House. Every site is a sight of contestation.