I don't think in terms of failure....I don't feel like anyone outside of me should be setting limitations. People should be encouraged to shoot for the moon.

Art and life are subjective. Not everybody's gonna dig what I dig, but I reserve the right to dig it.

Most of all, I dislike this idea nowadays that if you're a black person in America, then you must be called African-American. Listen, I've visited Africa, and I've got news for everyone: I'm not an African.

I have the strangest time to get cast in anything. 'Ghost' was the same thing. Six months I had to wait for them to decide they had seen everybody possible. Why not? What limits me? I'm black? Oh, am I black?

[On writing to Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple:] I told her I would play a Venetian blind, dirt on the floor, anything.

[On her monologue as the thief 'Fontaine':] People always got things. People always want things. So I provide a service.

When I was 9 years old, Star Trek came on.