For anyone who is not white in America, the affronts are virtually across the board.

I can't think of a more mediocre human talent than George Bush. He obviously is a product of family advantage, and he's the worst American President of all time.

I've always thought I had pretty good instincts for people. There is a short list of people I've worked with over my career with whom I've not been able to distinguish easily between the public persona and the real private person.

I've never had any trouble opposing people I've been close to. I've never worried about offending or bothering people I feel strongly about.

Black people in America have to, for their own protection, develop a defense mechanism, and I just grew terribly tired of it.

Something is very, very wrong with American culture. The signs are everywhere. I think the country is in almost terminal descent. The business class is combined with the evangelicals. And I think the evangelicals want to provoke an immense global disaster to precipitate the second coming of Christ. So they are very happy about what we're doing to Iraq - and the menace we present now for Syria and for Iran - because they think that the apocalypse is an important thing to get into so that they can see vindicated their most literal interpretation of the Bible.

We all have to die, and I preferred to have just one death. It seems to me that to suffer insult without response is to die many deaths.