When a violent minority that crosses color lines comes to believe that killing those you know or do not know is a reasonable solution to problems, we are in need of another vision.

Rap actually comes out of punk rock, not black music.

I wanted to get to that aesthetic proposition that comes out of learning the human elements of a world, so that those notes and rhythms mean something to you besides just the academic way in which they fall in place.

The grand irony, however, is that Southern segregation was not brought to an end, nor redneck violence dramatically reduced, by violence.

If there's an intellectual highway, there's also an intellectual subway.

Our democratic richness arrives when we're able to comprehend our collective humanity accurately.

In America, we have to learn to be patient enough to figure out what somebody is saying. Somebody might actually be saying something.