One out of every eight prisoners in the world is an African American. We are warehousing people as a profit to shareholders or for benefits to communities that get to host federal prisons. It is modern slavery.

I wanted to write and think. Activism is a displacing kind of passion.

I think the evangelicals want to provoke an immense global disaster to precipitate the second coming of Christ.

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.

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

Where does a black soul go to rest?

I think the business community knows that half the world's oil reserves are gone. All the low-hanging fruit has been picked, and now there's the scramble for what remains.