Raw

I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves, and I watch my daughters — two beautiful, black young women — head off to school, waving goodbye to their father, the President of the United States.

Just please be honest with yourself about what you think and how you feel about all of that, what you like and dislike, what angers you or scares you or saddens you or inspires you, or delights you. Those feelings are called your instincts, and you ignore them at your own peril.

Option A is not available. So let's just kick the shit out of option B.

The moment you focus on that, you vacate your own soul.

I didn't know who I was or what I was going to do with my life when I finished college. I wasn't any clearer about my direction than the day I graduated high school.

The opposite of love isn't hate. It isn't even indifference. It's fear.

Don't make the mistake of comparing your twisted up insides to other people's blow-dried outsides.

If you can get curious about what scares or infuriates you, especially if it's part of yourself, you can get way less scared.

I speak because I think our time on earth is short and each moment that we are not our truest selves, each moment we pretend to be what we are not, each moment we say what we do not mean because we imagine that is what somebody wants us to say, then we are wasting our time on earth.

Whereas children here had ghosts and the boogeyman, our equivalents were our governments.

It meant more to our father to see us deal with a setback and try to bounce back than to watch how we handled our successes. 'Show what you are made of,' he would say.

What's next for me? I don't know. So I'm in exactly the same boat as many of you. And like you, I'm a little scared but also excited.