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.

What is needed now is a transformation of the major systems of production more profound than even the sweeping post-World War II changes in production technology.

Reconstruction is the great black hole that remains to be filled. Even experts on the Civil War don't really understand its full significance.

I get so angry. I just go through so many different patches in a game. It's so hard for me to find that balance. It's a tug-of-war all the time.

I have a great deal of respect and affinity for Tammy Duckworth; she's a seatmate of mine. She's got heart, soul; she's a war hero.