I happen to be a hopeaholic. I tend to look at problems as an opportunity to do some work.

That artists are called to be more responsible and 'true' is a tip of hat to their power.

I was a mimic when I was a child. I mimicked the teacher and made friends that way, actually. That was a very subversive activity, because I was a goody-goody who never got in trouble. But if I went off in the corner and mimicked the teacher, people loved it.

I see myself first and foremost as a student of expression.

If I do three interviews in a day, I can be exhausted, because the process of hearing everyone requires that I empty out myself. While I'm listening, my own judgments and prejudices certainly come up. But I know I won't get anything unless I get those things out of the way.

Somehow we can't live outside the politics of race. There's something very deep in all of us, that is taught to us when we are very, very little. Which is the disrespect and fear of the other.

We spend so much time bantering about the words when the real open conversations might very well be our actions. I worry about our rhetoric.