Oh, I love labels, as long as they are numerous. I'm an American writer. I'm a Nigerian writer. I'm a Nigerian American writer. I'm an African writer. I'm a Yoruba writer. I'm an African American writer. I'm a writer who's been strongly influenced by European precedents. I'm a writer who feels very close to literary practice in India - which I go to quite often - and to writers over there.
No matter how far a person can go the horizon is still way beyond you.
African-American voters are not nearly as enthusiastic about [Hillary] Clinton as they were about [Barack] Obama.
There is nothing in the world common to man, that man cannot do.
When you get real old, honey, you realize there are certain things that just don't matter anymore. You lay it all on the table. There's a saying, 'Only little children and old folks tell the truth. '
Excellence is the name of the game.
I'm an American; I'm not an African-American. I'm an American.
Obamanomics, his imposition of European-style socialism, is not working for African-Americans. It is not working for Latinos and African-Americans.
From being a little girl in the projects, going through all of the mess that I was going through, to ending up at the Inauguration for the first African-American president, I'm speechless right now because I never thought I'd - I never ever - I couldn't even see that far. Even when I ended up in the music business, I couldn't see that.
To my knowledge, no progressive educator has ever suggested that children didn't need to know the "mere facts" about the contributions of African Americans to our society.
I'm the whitest guy you will ever meet. The first time I saw an African-American, my dad had to tell me to stop staring.
There has been a struggle to reclaim the African self. That struggle has been on the part of a minority of dedicated African-Americans who never gave up our African identity at no time during our stay here.
If we have the courage and tenacity of our forebears, who stood firmly like a rock against the lash of slavery, we shall find a way to do for our day what they did for theirs.
What I want to do is basically tell my generation's story about how music and culture helped affect a generation, and a generation that's so profound, that it went on to elect the first African-American president.
During the Great Depression, African Americans were faced with problems that were not unlike those experienced by the most disadvantaged groups in society. The Great Depression had a leveling effect, and all groups really experienced hard times: poor whites, poor blacks.
Since Bush has been in office, African-American women have fallen behind in terms of income and wages.
African-Americans have rarely been the beneficiaries of Presidential rhetorical excess.
You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.
People see dark faces out there, and the perception is that they're African American. They're not us. They're impostors.
Everything African-Americans - every freedom they have obtained - came from Republicans, not Democrats. All the way back to the Emancipation Proclamation, to the Civil Rights movement. Civil Rights legislation was passed by a Republican Congress.