The question of religion in black America is something filmmakers don't want to touch.

My family is my career.

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.

The question of religion in black America is something filmmakers don't want to touch.

There are two responses to really awful things. One is to lament and say, "Oh my God, oh lord." And the other is to laugh at it a little bit, try your best to deal with it and, if you can, forget about it as soon as possible.

I just read history books. I read nothing but history books. They have so much to give; I wish I'd majored in history in college.

...since I was a little boy, she had always wanted me to go. She was always sending me off on a bus someplace, to elementary school, to camp, to relatives in Kentucky, to college. She pushed me away from her just as she'd pushed my elder siblings away when we lived in New York, literally shoving them out the front door when they left for college.