The relationship we have with God is not the same over a life; sometimes, as with human relationships, it goes through bad patches and sometimes it becomes very intense. It is a terrifying thing to have a relationship with one's creator, to spend one's life so that one is trying to converge with one's creator seems an extraordinarily difficult and sublime thing. But at the same time it's extremely simple. One of the things which perpetually amazes me is that at any moment or any day, anyone who is alive can talk with the creator of the cosmos.

I think poetry can be a kind of secular way in which people can be led to approach the difficult parts of their life, where there's been loss, where there's sadness of a deep kind. If poetry can help people to be more at ease in expressing even to themselves a lot of the darkness and pain of ordinary human existence, then it's serving some kind of cultural role, perhaps more than a cultural role, perhaps it is serving something of a spiritual role.

When you work hard and you treat people great, regardless of what it is that you're doing, naturally people want to help and do things.

On 'Think Like a Man,' they got the best out of me because they allowed me to bring my own cadences and opinions to the character that I was playing. I think we got the best of that particular character.

The most important thing for a director is being able to communicate.

I am who I am today because of my mother.

My son is becoming me - just a silly, silly prankster guy.