It's hard for me to talk about the terrible things that have happened in my lifetime because they didn't need to be.

The fact that human beings do not put up forever with misery, humiliation, degradation, actual physical deprivation but act is a fact which every human being should know about. We are a species that makes changes.

It is distraction, not meditation, that becomes habitual; interruption, not continuity; spasmodic, not constant toil.

It is a long baptism into the seas of humankind, my daughter. Better immersion than to live untouched.

I very much dislike the word "race," and I never use it. I use the word "racist." Race is not a fact. There is only one race: human. Skin color is less than 2 percent of the DNA.

Think about all that we've lost that has been said orally because nobody was taking it down. I feel very fortunate to live in a time where we have so many different voices. We have a much richer literature than we've ever had, and we can know America so much better.

That's what I want to be when I grow up, just a peaceful wreck holding hands with other peaceful wrecks.