I come to the understanding that maybe what was on the inside was more important, and that your outer covering didn't count so much as folks thought it did, colored or white, man or woman.

I think comedy allows people to accept the more difficult parts of history. And history, if it's presented wrong, is just very depressing, particularly the history of slavery. If slavery is presented properly, it's a great story. But I think that within the commercial world of storytelling in which I live, there haven't been many strong works that discuss slavery in ways that are palatable and funny and interesting to the reader.

What humor allows you to do is to let the past go with less pain. It's a healing element. It releases some of the pain from the shotgun wound.

I'd like to do something involving jazz. But books are how I earn my living, and I'd like to stay with the horse I rode in on.

I put headlights in Ford vans. I still drive a Ford.

I wish all critics, no matter their color, were more sophisticated when it comes to the moral questions a film like 'St. Anna' is trying to raise.

My family is my career.