What happened after World War I was disgraceful. Most veterans, like my great-uncle, were squashed back into place. Congress couldn't pass an anti-lynching bill. The World War II generation, though, wasn't going to take it.

Freedom is having real choice. This offers a limited amount of choices. This is participating in a very imperfect system that we're desperately hanging onto, that we don't want to see further eroded.

There's a class divide in black America that doesn't seem to trouble black Americans so much, but whites use it and exploit it. The progress of a few is allowed to stand for the progress of everyone. We can't afford that kind of disaffection at the moment.

The point of Berlin was that it seemed that only people like you ran the city. You never ran into people who weren't like you - especially when you lived as that kind of American in Berlin connected to the arts.

Europe was a very contentious subject in literature and yet jazz musicians still depended on Europe. Now it's not such a big deal.

In the 19th century, Berlin was called the German Chicago. Or Chicago was called the American Berlin because they were sort of new cities or new powerhouses.

Home is the place where there is somebody who does not wish you any pain.