“To speak about yourself, you must first be able to assemble a sense of...” — Thomas Chatterton Williams Quote

“To speak about yourself, you must first be able to assemble a sense of origin. For descendants of slaves, this has proved one of the most precious losses of self-knowledge we've endured.”

“I do think that some form of reparations for the descendants of American slavery would go a long way.”

“Racism is a perceptive error, and what you actually have to do is you have to get into spaces where you're meeting people and perceiving them as human beings and not as racial stereotypes and myths.”

“I love being a foreigner.”

“There were books all over the house, and I was always told that I could write and that it was something good to do. So when I finally did it, it wasn't so strange or bizarre.”

“The idea that a person can be both black and white - and at the same time neither - is novel in America.”

“One of the biggest mistakes people make when they cook for other people is to think that it has to be fancy and elaborate. This results in enormous expense and nine days of labor, plus you end up trying to assemble a croquembouche in front of your guests and everyone's experiencing flop sweat.”

“I assemble my ideas in pieces on a computer file, then gradually find a place for them on a piece of scaffolding I erect.”

“There's detailed information on how to assemble a nuclear weapon from parts. There's books about how to build a nuclear bomb.”

“The Swedish government needs to understand that relations in the Middle East are more complicated than a piece of furniture from IKEA that you assemble at home.”

“Yes, our concept of lunar base construction would be to assemble various modules and propulsion/power buses in L1, and that would constitute the base.”

“On Diwali, my parents, friends, cousins - everyone used to assemble at our home, where we used to have a Diwali mela.”