The black church will accept anybody.

God gived you the seed. But the watering and caring of that seed is up to you.

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.

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.

Newt Gingrich wrote a novel, and he's a short story. Bill Clinton wrote a biography, and he's a novel.

But what difference does it make? ... When you're mixed, you see how absurd this business of race is.

Slavery was a web of relationships, and if people knew how thick the whole business was, they would not make fun of people like Harriet Tubman. They would understand how intelligent she was and how sharp.