John Legend is a nickname that some friends started calling me, and it kind of grew into my stage name.
Ronald Reagan perfected the subtler version long ago by talking about "welfare mothers" - a code phrase for people of colour.
I think one thing writers can do is point out that you don't have to say openly racist things, like [Donald] Trump, to be a racist or a xenophobe.
How many really great writers are there who are totally non-political? You can hear the French Revolution in the poetry of [Percy Bysshe] Shelly and [John] Wordsworth; you can sense the vast inequalities of Tsarist Russia in [Anton] Chekhov and [Lev] Tolstoy.
One of my favourite contemporary fiction writers is a Texan, Ben Fountain. His extraordinary novel, Billy Lynn's Long Half-Time Walk, all takes place within the half-time show at a Dallas Cowboys football game. No one has better summed up the American appetite for spectacle, the link between sports and politics, and the absolute madness of George W. Bush's Iraq War.
In Canada, the U. S. and most of Europe it may be easy to take political stands, this is something for which you can be forced to pay with your life, or your freedom, in many other parts of the world, from Iran to Russia to Pakistan to China.
Even [Ernst] Hemingway, perhaps the most intentionally non-political of American writers, became passionately partisan during the Spanish Civil War.
Do not compare yourself. Find out what God has placed in your ability.
I learned that kids in show business are so different from regular, average students. They would gather behind you and help you to succeed in any way possible.
My aim was to create armaments to protect the borders of my motherland. It is not my fault that the Kalashnikov became very well-known in the world; that it was used in many troubled places. I think the policies of these countries are to blame, not the designers. Man is born to protect his family, his children, his wife. But I want you to know that apart from armaments, I have written three books in which I try to educate our youth to show respect for their families, for old people, for history.
He'll get tired of chasing someone who doesn't chase back!