Criticism shouldn't be a performance that upstages the work it's talking about.

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.

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.

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

Marriage equality is a very middle-class issue and voting rights is a very working-class issue. If you do not vote, who are you speaking for? Who will be the next Fannie Lou Hamer? If not you or someone you know, then who?

It's important for the progressive youth to remember that the agenda you set today is the agenda that will matter tomorrow. If you are engaged and active, it means you are one of the lucky ones and you are awake. Most people are not there yet.

Economic justice is not just something blacks are crying out for; whites are desperate for it, too. But in the public imagination, the face of poverty is black. In all actuality, the face of poverty is white.