I've always been a writer because I've always been a student. My mom's a retired professor, so I come from a very academic background. I love writing, you know?

Black community, I think as a whole America is dealing with the issue of homophobia. We got to be really honest about whether we believe in civil rights for all people or not. As Black people we need to remember the moment that we say it's okay to disenfranchise one segment of society, we're opening the door to move backward on ourselves.

You can never control how people respond to your work. You can only control your own work ethic.

I've been doing this work [ambassador of VDay]for a long time, and there are so many ways that we have to work to eradicate domestic violence and violence against women, this felt like such a tangible way to make a difference.

I always prided myself on the fact that I could live out of milk crates forever. It was kind of my way of detaching from materialism.

I have to do the work of self-love and affirmation, and say, "I am a woman, I am a person of color, I am the granddaughter of immigrants, I am also the descendant of slaves, I am a mother, I am an entrepreneur, I am an artist, and I'm joyful." And maybe in seeing my joy, you can finish your sentence with, "And I am joyful too."

I'm doing this play right now, the new David Mamet play. It's called 'Race,' and it's very interesting how people really leave the theater filled with the desire to talk about the play and the issues and the characters, and how they're all navigating their personal views around race.