“Let's face it - think of Africa, and the first images that come to mind are of war, poverty, famine and flies. How many of us really know anything at all about the truly great ancient African civil...”

“You can say I had a severe case of 'Roots' envy. I wanted to be like Alex Haley, and I wanted to be able to... do my family tree back to the slave ship and then reverse the Middle Passage, as I lik...”

“The sad truth is that the civil rights movement cannot be reborn until we identify the causes of black suffering, some of them self-inflicted. Why can't black leaders organize rallies around respon...”

“But you see, our society is still trapped in this binary, black/white logic and that has had some very positive implications for our generation. It's had some very negative ones as well and one of ...”

“Patriotism is best exemplified through auto-critique.”

“Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.”

“Forever and ever, kid, until you're sick and tired of seeing me.”

“Falling into ruin was a bit like falling in love: Both descents stripped you bare and left you as you were at your core. And both endings are equally painful.”

“Never hold resentments for the person who tells you what you need to hear; count them among your truest, most caring, and valuable friends.”

“I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,I see my father strolling outunder the ochre sandstone arch, thered tiles glinting like bentplates of blood behind his head, Isee my mother...”

“We realized that the version of the world they rendered for us was not the world they really believed in...”

“Id never heard my parents make love. If they made love, they did it silently, like bank robbers, like surgeons.”

“You like me not because I like you. I like you just because I like me.”

“Maybe the truth is I really want to like you instead.”

“If somebody likes me, I want them to like the real me, not what they think I am.”