To be black in the Baltimore of my youth was to be naked before the elements of the world.

Obama's presence opened a new field for writers, and what began as curiosity about the man himself eventually expanded into curiosity about the community he had so consciously made his home and all the old, fitfully slumbering questions he'd awakened about American identity.

We've got in the habit of not really understanding how freedom was in the 19th century, the idea of government of the people in the 19th century. America commits itself to that in theory.

In comics, you have to imagine what happens. I really loved it; I loved collecting. I loved following the adventures and figuring out what was going to happen next. I was a huge X-Men fan; I was a huge Spider-Man fan, and, to large degree, I remain one. It's literature for me; it's art.

There are some folks at the teacher's union who aren't big fans of mine, in part, because I have been open and want to make sure everybody is sitting at the table as we talk about education.

We have to move back to the idea that education isn't about teaching people to bow to rigid rules. That's not what democracy is about.

The war in Iraq has fractured the political will of the United States and the world.

In conflict zones in particular, we need personnel who wear the badge of the United States, are a part of our official military command, and are always held accountable for their actions.