He must trust, and he must have faith. And so he builds, because what is building, and rebuilding and rebuilding again, but an act of faith?

Yes, a dark time passed over this land, but now there is something like light.

But while Sasha told us that in America even the most successful men can have but one wife at once--my father had six--and talked about escalators, indoor plumbing, and the various laws of the land, he did not warn us that I would be told by American teenagers that I should go back to Africa.

For me, the watershed was Hurricane Katrina. If that didn't get people out on the streets, then what will?

Every time I get through the work on a book of nonfiction, I say I'll never do it again; it takes so much out of you.

At one point, early on, some public figures even asked whether it 'made sense' to rebuild New Orleans. Would you let your own mother die because it didn't make financial sense to spend the money to treat her, or because you were too busy to spend the time to heal her sick spirit?