A Quote by Henry Louis Gates

I got a letter from this lady of Russian and Jewish descent. She asked me if I was a racist because I didn't do any White people. I was shocked, because my mandate is to do Black studies. It would have never occurred to me if this lady hadn't written this letter. We decided we were going expand the brand and do everybody.
It occurred to me in my junior year of high school. I got my first letter from a big college. I still have that letter to this day - a letter from Indiana.
My mother found a letter, though, that I wrote her when I was 8 years old and it was a letter where I asked if she could take me to the orphanage because I would like to adopt a little baby.
Darling, You asked me to write you a letter, so I am writing you a letter. I do not know why I am writing you this letter, or what this letter is supposed to be about, but I am writing it nonetheless, because I love you very much and trust that you have some good purpose for having me write this letter. I hope that one day you will have the experience of doing something you do not understand for someone you love. Your father
I got the letter about becoming a Sir in 2000, the same year that Pauline asked me if we could finally get married. My assistant, Colette, called up and it turned out both the wedding and the Buck House ceremony were happening on the same day. I was knighted at 11 and married at four. She became an instant Lady.
A white lady came running up to me after a show. She goes, What gives you the right to do jokes about black people like that. And I'm like, Listen lady, my best friend is Cuban. And that's close enough.
When my daughter looks at me, she sees a small old lady. That is because she sees only with her outside eyes. She has no chuming, no inside knowing of things. If she had chuming she would see a tiger lady. And she would have careful fear.
My favorite six letter word is always because it promises so much. My favorite five letter word is never because it insists on contradicting the promise. My favorite four letter word is once because it says it happened then. My favorite three letter word is yes because I’m just now learning to say it to my heart. My favorite two letter word is if because it makes all things possible like this: If not always If not never Then once. Yes.
Someone asked me if I would like to write a man on death row, be a pen pal, and I was like, sure. I volunteered. I had been in a place in my life - a relationship had ended; my parents were getting elderly - I was kind of adrift. The name that was given to me, just randomly, was Todd Willingham. And he wrote me a letter, and in this letter, he thanked me for writing him and [said that] if I would like to visit, he would put me on his visitor list... I was just really struck by the letter from Todd. It was very polite; it was very kind.
One can take a neon tube and simply paint it black on the front. So it would read as a black letter or a line, but it would also read as neon because there would be light coming from behind that black letter.
Kids love Lady Gaga because she's a freak, and she's one of the few people doing that, but unfortunately, Lady Gaga hasn't got the tunes. She's not David Bowie or Roxy Music.
I received a wonderful email after I spoke at a school from a girl who'd lived in a war zone and endured horrors no human being should suffer, let alone a child. This young lady was fortunate to be bought to Britain and seemed to adjust well, but suddenly found herself falling off the rails and sliding into hell when I chatted to her. In her letter, she told me the difference that I'd made. She's now 20 years old and a fashion designer employing staff and she puts her work ethic down purely to talking to me. It's my most treasured letter.
The First Lady asked me how many people passed through the White House on tours. When I told her thousands did, she said they should sell something to the tourists and use the profits to help redecorate the White House. She decided to make a small book. It cost 42 cents and sold for a dollar. Over the years it has brought in $42 million.
I didn't get the Russian Jew part because they didn't think I looked Russian or Jewish enough - and, mind you, I am both Russian and Jewish - so I was cast as the racist Mexican.
Rachael Leigh Cook was my leading lady. She was awesome. We loved the show [Perception ]. Again, it was more of a TNT show, because there were crimes that got solved, which [going] back five years ago, was a mandate. But there was something innovative about the mental illness side of it.
Rule Number One for working for a white lady, Minny: it is nobody’s business. You keep your nose out of your White Lady’s problems, you don’t go crying to her with yours—you can’t pay the light bill? Your feet are too sore? Remember one thing: white people are not your friends. They don’t want to hear about it. And when Miss White Lady catches her man with the lady next door, you keep out of it, you hear me?
It was a good 15 or 20 years before anyone at Rand would be in the same room with me. They didn't want the question raised, 'What's your relationship with Daniel Ellsberg?' And not one of them wrote me a letter because they didn't want a letter of theirs to show up in my trash - which the FBI had been going through.
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