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

Under popular culture's obsession with a naive inclusion, everything is O.K.

If you're going to get in the ring and try to take the belt, you have to prepare to get hit.

Louis Armstrong, who learned to be in exquisite dress, came from the bottom, and he's not a trash can.

Getting to the pint where the other is not the enemy is a big leap.

Your ethnic or sexual identity, what region of the country you're from, what your class is - those aspects of your identity are not the same as your aesthetic identity.

Everybody has to be reminded that there's another way to be. Another more mysterious, unpredictable way to be that's not necessarily based upon contrivances.