The one thing I've learned, getting out to all those foreign and domestic locales, is that people in every country of the 'civilized' world wish - either secretly or openly - that they had the expressiveness, the flair, the I'm-so-glad-to-be-me spirit that black folks have made a part of American life.

Some folks are wise and some are otherwise.

Brainy folks were also present in Lyndon Johnson's administration especially in the Pentagon where Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's brilliant 'whiz kids' tried to micro-manage the Vietnam war with disastrous results.

But as far as being an American and loving this country and getting a chance to travel across it every day and meeting people on the road and folks in the military I love this country on so many different levels.

I try to forget about the expectation that's out there and the audience listening for the next thing so that I'm not trying to please them. I've spent a huge amount of time not communicating with those folks and denying that they exist.

We need to internalize this idea of excellence. Not many folks spend a lot of time trying to be excellent.

Look folks we know who built this country and we know who is going to rebuild it. It's you. Instead of vilifying you we should be thanking you. We owe you.

On the other hand there would be some value in different folks getting together to share expertise and technology but to the listener it wouldn't necessarily seem like a single station in the traditional sense.

These days the technology can solve our problems and then some. Solutions may not only erase physical or mental deficits but leave patients better off than "able-bodied" folks. The person who has a disability today may have a superability tomorrow.

You can't have a United States if you are telling some folks that they can't get on the train. There is a cracking point where a society collapses.

You can always tell folks from nonfolks. Folks like to feel good like to smile for the camera when there's a big photo opportunity for a really good cause.

I love it when the left and when the president say 'Don't try to impose your values on us you folks who hold your Bibles in your hand and cling to your guns.' They have values too. Our values are based on religion based on life. Their values are based on a religion of self.

When you come from desperate poverty and that's exactly what I come from you know that nonsenses are not to be tolerated. I'm not sure who gains from chaos but I know it's not the poor folks in the council flats. The politics of vindictiveness is never ever anything like a solution.

I voted for Barack because he was black. 'Cuz that's why other folks vote for other people - because they look like them... That's American politics pure and simple.

This career essentially chased me down while I was on the spoken-word scene in New York. I kept hearing that my delivery of my poetry - which was very personal and cathartic at the time- was very moving to folks. People thought that I was an actress because of my delivery when I was just dropping into the work and really pouring out my soul.

I don't blame folks for not wanting to put me in their movies or whatever. I understand if their audiences had an association with me.

I haven't got as much money as some folks but I've got as much impudence as any of them and that's the next thing to money.

There was one thing my daddy wouldn't tolerate in any shape form or fashion and that was being unkind or rude to somebody. That was just very important to my folks. And as it turns out that was a legacy that he left me that money can't buy is how to be able to treat people.

Many folks think they aren't good at earning money when what they don't know is how to use it.

A lot of times black folks look for love in all the wrong places. You're always looking for somebody to love you be accepted and there's the insecurities that are even transmitted through rap. Everyone is trying to aim to please too much.

Most organizations should be pro-active but philanthropists concerned with poverty should deliberately be reactive learning from the efforts of ordinary folks who tired of looking the other way as their communities fell apart.

Contrary to current cynicism about past golden ages the abstraction known as 'the intelligent layperson' does exist - in the form of millions of folks with a passionate commitment to continuous learning.

I think we need leadership that helps us remember that part of what we are about is caring about more than the person right next to us but the folks across the way.

My folks were raised pure prohibitionist. They were very good people with high moral standards - but very repressed. There was no hugging and kissing in my home.