Our job as writers and thinkers in the time is how to bring about the occasions that let people have that first-person experience - or the metaphoric experience that allows them to see human continuity as opposed to total threat, total willingness to do violence.

The discussion of ideas as opposed to the American narcissistic obsession with what's going on with the self, that's the general thing people are talking about.

The high point of civilization is that you can hate me and I can hate you but we develop an etiquette that allows us to deal with each other because if we acted solely upon our impulse we'd probably go to war.

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.

You can meet a young person who goes to school and is really enthusiastic, but if a sufficiently strong personality convinces them that this is a waste of time, that person might flunk out.

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.

Popular culture tells you that schools and parents don't know what's going on, the police are dogs, politicians are all liars and scum, and any crime that's not committed by the Mafia is done by the CIA.

All of us are made up of the stories that we listen to, the ones we disagree with and the ones that we agree with.

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

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

Our society has gotten to the point where we might soon become less and less shocked by any kind of violence.

When people conclude that all is futile, then the absurd becomes the norm.

When you're artistic director of a program, you present the music you want to present.

Now the writing in the head, I definitely do every day, thinking about how I want to phrase something or how I'd like to rephrase something I've already written.

But the myth of violent solutions as the ultimate solutions maintains itself in much of popular media.

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

I don't know any women who don't think about what they look like, and I don't know any men who don't think about what women look like.

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

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

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