I had a deep prejudice against the South. It's taken me many years to get over that, be more open and thoughtful.

I can't pretend that I did one really awful thing - I took a bite out of the apple but now I'm never going to sin again.

Our thoughts, our language, are always at a distance from whatever they're trying to describe. We have other kinds of languages, like mathematics, like music, like art, but there's always that gap.

Good writing is always about things that are important to you, things that are scary to you, things that eat you up.

Our thoughts, our language, are always at a distance from whatever they're trying to describe. We're dreamers and - since we only have one life, and if we screw up we can get in a world of trouble - we're very intense dreamers. That's the beauty and the terror of being human beings: We just have these symbolic languages, these dreams, and that's all it ever is. There is no American or Frenchhistory. There are all these dreams that are floating around. People construct them and fight with them and criticize them, and the world goes on. I don't think the stars pay much attention.

When you're at the basketball court watching a game, one person may be talking about a fight he had with his wife, another is talking about the last hard-on he got, someone else is talking about the presidential election. The language and the tone and the voice - I'd love to be able to capture that spontaneity.

If Mumia Abu-Jamal has nothing important to say, why are so many powerful people trying to shut him up?