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

I remember from my father's funeral that the minister kept using a metaphor about life of a prism. And I took that away like a cherished image.

You've heard that old expression from Shakespeare, 'Just speak the speech'? The words themselves will take you to the reality of the character. And so this led me to interview people.

I think we need leadership that helps us remember that part of what we are about is caring about more than the person right next to us, but the folks across the way.

I'm interested when things are upside down - because there are so many possibilities in that one moment. There is a lot that is exposed.