I think it's impossible to predict the future but it is possible to look at the past and see how one can do differently from what one's ancestors have done and learn from their mistakes, and one can see how even though there are enormous forces which stop one doing what one wants to, there are little holes in which the individual can do something.

The main purpose of engaging in conversation can no longer be personal advancement or respectability. Instead, I'd like for us to use conversations to create equality, to open ourselves to strangers, and, most practically, to remake our working world.

However fascinating you may think you are, there is a limit to what you can know about yourself.

One of the great ambitions is to discover the diversity of the world, to discover who inhabits the world.

I so desperately wanted to fit in. There was a trajectory, and obviously, our society tells us that you go to high school, you graduate, and then you go to college, and from there, you get an internship, you get a job, and some people study abroad, and there are so many things you see that you desperately want to be a part of.

When I was a kid, I played basketball religiously. I begged my mom to get me voice lessons because I wanted to learn to sing the right way, but at the same time, I was playing Junior Olympic basketball, and I was playing point guard for my school. But I was wanting to get into entertainment, into music and film and television.

We have a locale-based education system; we have increasing economic segregation. We clearly need a larger federal program to try to help disadvantaged districts.

I respect everyone's right to their own religious beliefs, but for me, this cannot extend to our education system treating some people's lives and identities as if they are somehow less worthy of respect or love.