My dream was I was going to be an actor. Racism occurred to me. It dawned on me that I would not be an actor. It occurred to me that I was not white. It occurred to me that being what they call colored, being a Negro, was some kind of a disadvantage.

OK, boss, I don't mind shuffling, but I won't scratch my head.

The kind of beauty I want most is the hard-to-get kind that comes from within - strength, courage, dignity.

Paradise is to be the ultimate instrument, fulfilling God's desperate intent that we love each other.

Art is in the process of redefining our relationships to each other ... The creative minds are bubbling, bubbling, and I know the soup that's coming up next time is going to feed a lot more of us.

Spike Lee made such a difference in terms of black filmmakers, the subtleties - those authors, those writers who write from love, and those who write from that lofty position of superiority.I felt he took aspects of the black experience in America and held it up for us to see. He tried to put it in perspective. He did put it in perspective in his unique way.

God, make me so uncomfortable that I will do the very thing I fear.