Politics is work. Hiphop is music. The idea that hiphop, because it makes the body feel good to move to it and it makes the soul feel good to hear out angry young black men, can be transmuted into changing the world is narcotic but nonsensical. Wherever hiphop is ever "going," we can be sure it will not be in a constructive direction, anymore than fashions in the color of cars. And it shouldn't "concern" us in the least.

People have been warning us that language was going to the dogs ever since Latin started turning into French. Yet the dogs in question never seem to emerge yelping on the horizon.

Barack Obama's said some very nice things and he says them well. But if you ask me, the reason that we're looking at somebody who is such an inexperienced senator, who has said some very pleasant but not especially sterling or innovative things, the reason that he's considered such a big deal is simply because he's black.

Loving your language means a command of its vocabulary beyond the level of the everyday.

I think even in today's America, there's a sense that there's something vaguely sexy about cigarettes.

A person you excuse from any genuine challenge is a person you do not truly respect.

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