If you're bored, your readers will be bored. If you're faking it, you won't get the kind of readers you want.

Being a liberal progressive has been demonized as anti-white or overly on the side of blacks. There's nothing that can be done about that; it's just where we are in the history of our perceptions.

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.

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.

People from Europe and people from Africa encountered one another long before the invention of "Europe" and "Africa" and "white people" and "black people."

It's not nothing when you're abroad and you don't have a washing machine.

The hardest thing about Berlin is letting it belong to other people.