"If you're trying to convey a crucial emotional truth, you have to be in total control of the emotional pacing of the story, and if you can only strike one note in terms of tone then you're going to be quite limited as a writer."

“I can understand that memory must be selective, else it would choke on the glut of experience. What I cannot understand is why it selects what it does.”

Source : Virgilia Peterson (1961). “A Matter of Life and Death”, Bantam Books

“Public intellectuals come from a range of areas and use their expertise to comment more widely than just their field. They want to make a contribution to public space, and they stick their necks out to do it.”

“Life Among the Savages is a disrespectful memoir of my children.”

“As far as the work I did with Timbaland, it was his sound and I just kinda floated in his direction. I just rapped over his traditional beats.”

“I will love myself despite the ease with which I lean toward the opposite.”

Source : Twitter post from Jan 15, 2013

“It takes ground activity to stimulate that Black vote.”

“Ask Baby can you be truly part of someone you love." "He says only if you love yourself.”

“The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.”