For every horrific event, something beautiful happens.

Bigots are actually funny to me in the way that people who still wear parachute pants give me a chuckle.

Whatever you do, whether you're doing a television drama or a romantic comedy, you want to be relevant, to some degree.

I don't think it's good when entertainment tries to proselytize and I don't think people ultimately want someone showing up in their living room and just hectoring at them all day long. But if you can create a space where people are caught up in something - whether it's a drama, a comedy, a romantic comedy, or science fiction - that's when people give over their minds and allow their emotions to flow.

It is time to celebrate the New Black Americans - those who have sealed the Deal, who aren't beholden to liberal indulgence any more than they are to the disdain of the hard Right. It is time to praise blacks who are merely undeniable in their individuality and exemplary in their levels of achievement .

As a writer, as a storyteller, you have to have your emotions close, and the older I've gotten, the less I've worried about not displaying emotions.

I understand politicos gotta make bank. But cloistering with the Hollywood elite is not how you prove you're a man of the people.