When I was a kid no one would believe anything positive that you could say about black people. That's a terrible burden.

More brands are waking up to their social responsibility and doing good work through cause marketing campaigns. Yet too many still go about it the wrong way. I mean 'wrong' in two senses. Firstly they are marketing ineffectively and secondly as a consequence their positive social impact is not maximized.

When people ask me about my story I just go through the positive stuff: the tent-pole moments the big landmark checkpoints.

People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life without understanding what is subversive about love and what is positive in the refusal of constraints such people have a corpse in their mouth.

There is a sense that things if you keep positive and optimistic about what can be done do work out.

If you are given a chance to be a role model I think you should always take it because you can influence a person's life in a positive light and that's what I want to do. That's what it's all about.

When you are enthusiastic about what you do you feel this positive energy. It's very simple.

I call it people-to-people politics and that's what politics should be about reaching out and helping one another and touching one another about what we're going to do.

Most people get their politics obviously from TV shows about senators or movies about them or... all the day-to-day press and the talk shows.

This idea that a book can either be about character and feeling or about politics and idea is just a false binary. Ideas are an expression of the feelings and the intense emotions we hold about the world.