I call the language of political figures, pundits and administrators "the haute couture of language."

Movies, as evidenced by a chorus of protesting and celebrating Americans, influence broader trends.

I think some of our most talented people are not going to pick the arts as a way that they're going to spend their lives.

I love studying how people are. Not just what they're saying, but how they are, what they're doing.

Some people study a text very deeply. The people are my text. I study their words and what their words sound like, over and over again. When I was a kid, my grandfather said that "if you say a word often enough, it becomes you." Thinking of that later in life gave me this idea that I could try to become America by learning the words of people from many aspects of the country. It doesn't matter how educated they are. By living in the world and living their experiences, they bring extraordinary truths. I try to do those truths justice.

I think we can learn a lot about a person in the very moment that language fails them. In the very moment they they have to be more creative than they would have imagined in order to communicate. It's the very moment that they have to dig deeper than the surface to find words, and at the same time, it's a moment when they want to communicate very badly. They're digging deep and projecting out at the same time.

I feel like my work has been my path to freedom from having grown up in a segregated environment.