We do stigmatise teens a lot and see them as scary and alien.

Black people can be the most conservative, the most discriminating. Especially among ourselves. It wasn’t white people who said all black men have to wear baggy jeans.

National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country. Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right.

If I write badly about blacks, homosexuals and women, it is because of these who I met were that. There are many ‚bads‘ – bad dogs, bad censorship; there are even ‚bad‘ white males. Only, when you write about ‚bad‘ white males, they don’t complain about it. And need I say that there are ‚good‘ blacks, ‚good‘ homosexuals and ‚good‘ women?

People always say when they meet me that I’m not what they expect. I assume they think I’m this super dark and depressing guy, but I like to channel all of those emotions into my work.

I read so much stuff that black women say, especially about my relationship. ‚Oh, he left his black wife to go be with some exotic chick.‘ First of all, my girl is black: she’s Jamaican.

A man is as good as he has to be, and a woman as bad as she dares.

One of the things being in politics has taught me is that men are not a reasoned or reasonable sex.

I really don’t like women who try to be men. All these politicians, I think they’re horrendous. We could have a brilliant future, but we have this terrible male vision of destroying everything. They’d better sort themselves out and become more womanly.

My justification is that most people my age spend a lot of time thinking about what they’re going to do for the next five or ten years. The time they spend thinking about their life, I just spend drinking.

I think women go crazy for a reason. It’s not like it just happens.

Savages we call them because their manners differ from ours.

When I was fourteen and first started going out, I always wanted to be the opposite of everyone else. So I would go to the club in a polo T-shirt and pants and sneakers and a hat on backward, just so I would not be dressed like other girls.

The pace at which people are taking to digital technology defies our stereotypes of age, education, language and income.

The problem with Yanks is they are wimps.

Glam really did plant seeds for a new identity. I think a lot of kids needed that – that sense of reinvention. Kids learned that however crazy you may think it is, there is a place for what you want to do and who you want to be.

People have a negative impression of New York that I don’t think is quite fair.

I have no interest in gender or race or anything like that. But everyone else is kind of, with their calculating – is this the exact right mix? I think that’s – to me it’s anti-comedy. It’s more about PC-nonsense.

I would just say there is one misperception of our veterans, and that is they are somehow damaged goods. I don’t buy it.

You know how arrogant the French are – extraordinary.

We pay attention to every demographic in every country, so we’re going to focus on building things that teens are going to like, and we’re also going to focus on building things that other folks are going to like.

To understand Europe, you have to be a genius – or French.

All fat women look the same; they all look 42.

Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn’t they’d be married too.

Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no. That’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be president?

You know, I look like a woman but I think like a man. And in this world of business, that has helped me a lot. Because by the time they think that I don’t know what’s goin‘ on, I then got the money, and gone.

When red-haired people are above a certain social grade their hair is auburn.

In the public eye, girls and women with strong perspectives are hated. If you’re a girl with an opinion, people just hate you. There are still people who are afraid of successful women, and that’s so lame.

I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family it says they’re looting, if you see a white family it says they’re looking for food.

I wouldn’t say I’m a feminist, but I don’t like girls pretending to be stupid because it’s easier.

I like everything. Boyish girls, girlish boys, the heavy and the skinny. Which is a problem when I’m walking down the street.

A chaplain’s assistant is customarily a figure of fun in the American Army.

If women were particular about men’s characters, they would never get married at all.

The Americans at heart are a pure and noble people; things to them are in black and white. It’s either ‚rawk‘ or it’s not. We Brits putter around in the grey area.

I have known people who are working class or craftsmen, who happen to be more intellectual than professors.

Feminists wish women to seem like men. They’re not men.

The reason people think it’s important to be white is that they think it’s important not to be black.

Men don’t really like skinny, do they?

People take the little bit of information they’re fed, and they draw a picture of who you are. Most of the time, it’s wrong.

I’m a bookworm. I know with my physical appearance that I don’t look like the typical reader. I’m in Barnes & Noble all the time, and you can look at people that look like they are supposed to be in there. I am in there, pants sagging, hat backwards.

I think everyone’s inherently snobbish. Things that are very popular are not taken seriously, because the snobbish side of one says, ‚Well, if everyone likes it it can’t be that good.‘ Whereas if only I and a couple of other people like it, then it must be really something special.

Everyone got kind of crazy with me mentioning I was in love with a woman.

Why is it so hard for people to believe that white people are poor?! I wouldn’t say I lived in a ghetto; I’d say I lived in the ‚hood. The same friends I had back then are the same people on tour with me now.

Every woman is supposed to have the same set of motives, or else to be a monster.

When it comes to gossip, I have to readily admit men are as guilty as women.

We’re African-American and we work together as a family, so people assume we’re like the Jacksons. But I didn’t have parents using me to get out of a bad situation.

If you see a black family, it’s looting, but if it’s a white family they are looking for food.

Sure I believe in God and the Devil, but they don’t have to have pitchforks and a long white beard.

I’m interested in the fact that the less secure a man is, the more likely he is to have extreme prejudice.

Many parents and teachers have become irritated to the point of distraction at the way the weed-style growth of ‚like‘ has spread through the idiom of the young. And it’s true that in some cases the term has become simultaneously a crutch and a tic, driving out the rest of the vocabulary as candy expels vegetables.

If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.

I don’t know why women want any of the things men have when one of the things that women have is men.

To the women and children, T stands for tender. To the bad guys and thugs, it stands for tough.

Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves.

Every country is like a particular type of person. America is like a belligerent, adolescent boy; Canada is like an intelligent, 35-year-old woman. Australia is like Jack Nicholson. It comes right up to you and laughs very hard in your face in a highly threatening and engaging manner.

It was really hard for them to intimidate me. They felt I was intimidating. One of the growers had a name for me: I think it was ‚dragon lady‘ or something like it.

Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.

For most of my life I let women do the driving and was happy to let them.

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.

I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by married men.

I was not encouraged to follow the career of a writer because my parents thought that I was going to starve to death. They thought nobody can make a living from being a writer in Brazil. They were not wrong.