We must neither behave as children by resisting honesty, nor allow ourselves to be treated as children by having honesty withheld.

The only way that residual racist feelings could affect legislation, in my opinion, is through a lack of priorities, from not doing things.

If you took away the color of Barack Obama's skin, nobody right now would be paying him any attention.

I think what Obama does more than his amazing speaking ability is he's able to connect with voters. And it's that hope that he brings out in American citizens that we are all hungry for, that people get excited about Sen. Obama.

Prescriptive grammar has spread linguistic insecurity like a plague among English speakers for centuries, numbs us to the aesthetic richness of non-standard speech, and distracts us from attending to genuine issues of linguistic style in writing.

Texting is fingered speech. Now we can write the way we talk.

I don't think that we really know a whole lot about Barack Obama at all that you would really call distinctive.