I was too young to live on campus. I just went back and forth on the bus. Eventually I got my own car and thought I was Mr. Man, so I started hot wheelin' it.

Democracy only works, as President [Barack] Obama spoke of in his farewell message, if it's driven by the people and the people stay active and vigilant and speak out and let their concerns be known.

It's important for us to vote in mid-term off year elections in the times where state legislators and mayors offices are being vacated. These are the elections that actually impact the way we live oftentimes more than the President. So we have to pay attention to those things as well.

People talk about Jim Crow as if it's dead. Jim Crow isn't gone. It's adjusted. Look at the disproportionate sentences meted out to blacks caught up in the criminal justice system. There's a problem when people profit from putting and keeping African Americans in prison. We need to do a better job as a nation understanding the real values the country's built upon in terms of fairness, equality and equal opportunity.

It's crazy how intelligent kids can be at a very young age and how they know what they know.

I enjoy being surprised.

It's crazy how intelligent kids can be at a very young age and how they know what they know. I came out of the womb drawing on everything; I used to draw on my mother's white furniture and her white walls with her red lipstick and my pencils. Little did she know that would later materialize into me doing what I do now - I'm a painter as well and a micromechanical engineer.