My father combined many of the elements that were feared in the culture, but also he was a warm figure, a figure we needed. We depended on him to give us a little bit of strength and courage.

I'm still vulnerable and still weak.

Everything is up for grabs, everything is relative. Except nothing is if you are serious about it because the moment you become serious about answering a question you have a stake in it. Relatively goes out of the window, in one sense because you're putting your a** out there - you are depending on the answer, you need the answer.

That split is inside all Americans. There are contradictions inside all of us about color and race. We've learned to cover them up and live with them and pretend that deep cleavage is not there. We all bear that illness.

One of the earliest lessons I learned as a child was that if you looked away from something, it might not be there when you looked back.

Hell, I'm going to play pro basketball. I'm going to maybe be famous. I'm going to write books.

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.