“I don’t think saying “I was wrong here, I was wrong there” absolves you of anything particularly, nor does it get you into heaven.”

Every time you see a black romance it’s over-the-top. There always has to be extreme hostility between the sexes. He has to cheat. She has to show him how independently strong she is, not just as a woman but as a black woman.

Guilty as hell. Free as a bird. America is a great country.

Education is a right, it’s a journey, it’s a process, and it’s something we have to stand for, as hard as it is.

We just watched this budget debacle right? Seventy-three percent of Americans want to tax the rich. Why can’t the politicians respond to that? Because they are the rich. And they are beholden to the rich. It’s a captured system.

I think Bowe Bergdahl, if he deserted, is a hero – I think throughout history we should build monuments to the unknown deserters.

Imperialism or globalization – I don’t have to care what it’s called to hate it.

Art and activism can be symbiotic. They don’t have to be, of course; they can also be contradictory.

I try to avoid having thoughts. They lead to other thoughts, and—if you’re not careful—those lead to actions. Actions make you tired. I have this on rather good authority from someone who once read it in a book.

That’s where we all kind of were in the mid-1960s. Students for a Democratic Society grew from a small group of socialists at the university of Michigan into a national organization, and in many ways, its growth was driven by the Vietnam War.

The audience is like my instrument. It’s not just me up there, it’s collaborative.

I’m very interested in people who are in a situation that needs a little puzzling out. The thing that gets me started on a story is a person in a tough situation.

The way it happened was that we were advocating for a strike that we advocated that the faculty should strike in solidarity with the Vietnamese struggle.

If you’re going to help somebody, sneak in, sneak out, do what you can. I just sneak along and do my thing and meet wonderful people, some people I’ve never met, new friends.

Even there, [Barack] Obama’s generals, his Pentagon, they’re telling him what to do. And the force for gay rights is inevitable. And you can say Obama will help us, and maybe he will, but only if we have something on the ground that will make him help us.

Let’s enjoy this world. Let’s enjoy one another. We are meant to love one another, not to hate one another.