Henry Rollins dished on the power and limitations of music in his Big Think interview: "Is music a viable force for change?  Can music stop things, start things, change things?  To a certain degree yes, maybe in pop culture, but if a song or an artist could stop a war Bob Dylan and Bob Marley would have."

Sherman Alexie, author of the award-winning novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, on Young Adult fiction: "A lot of people have no idea that right now Y.A. is the Garden of Eden of literature... One person asked me, ‘Wouldn’t you have rather won the National Book Award for an adult, serious work?’ I thought I’d been condescended to as an Indian — that was nothing compared to the condescension for writing Y.A."

"You see what power is – holding someone else's fear in your hand and showing it to them." -Amy Tan, from her book The Kitchen God's Wife (1991)

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nicholas Kristof recently visited Big Think to discuss his new book A Path Appears and talk about the tactics advocates must employ to raise awareness for a good cause.

Civil rights leader Mary McLeod Bethune on never giving in to discrimination:  "If we accept and acquiesce in the face of discrimination, we accept the responsibility ourselves and allow those responsible to salve their conscience by believing that they have our acceptance and concurrence. We should, therefore, protest openly everything... that smacks of discrimination or slander."

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." -Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple

Even an Iron Chef can fall into the trap of letting his kids eat junk food. His secret to selling his kids on nutrition is to present good foods in forms and textures they enjoy.